Robotic brace aids stroke recovery
Worn on the arm, NeuroRobotic device is lightweight, portable
From: MIT News Office - 03/20/2007
By: Deborah Halber

At age 32, Maggie Fermental suffered a stroke that left her right side
paralyzed. After a year and a half of conventional therapy with minimal
results, she tried a new kind of robotic therapy developed by MIT engineers.
A study to appear in the April 2007 issue of the American Journal of Physical
Medicine & Rehabilitation shows that the device, which helped Fermental, also
had positive results for five other severe stroke patients in a pilot
clinical trial.  

Fermental, a former surgical nurse, used the rehabilitation device 18 times
over nine weeks. After 16 sessions, Fermental, now a stroke education nurse
at Beth Israel Hospital, was able to fully bend and straighten her elbow on
her own for the first time since the stroke. "It was incredible to be able to
move my arm again on command," she said. "Cooking, dressing, shopping,
turning on light switches, opening cabinets - it's easier now that I have two
arms again."  

The device - which sensed Fermental's electrical muscle activity and provided
power assistance to facilitate her movements - also altered her brain.  

Read the entire article at:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/brace.html

Links:
Active Joint Brace wins MIT $50K contest
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/50k.html

Myomo
http://www.myomo.com/index.html

Myomo Receives FDA Clearance to Market the Myomo e100 NeuroRobotic System
http://www.myomo.com/about_us/release_july_10.pdf