With Robots, a New Way to Understand Strokes
From: The New York Times - 01/12/2012
By: James Warren

Dr. Julius Dewald is trying to meld medicine, science and engineering in a
path-breaking way to better understand how robotic therapy might help people
who have had strokes reach for a hamburger or pull on a fancy boot. 

He is overseeing a project that is changing the way people think about
strokes. It is partly financed by the National Institutes of Health, the
Department of Education and the American Heart Association. He and his
25-person team are trying to determine if electromechanical devices can more
precisely measure impairment and accelerate what is now a belated, long, and
expensive rehabilitation. 

A subject was hooked to a robot by wrapping his left arm in a mechanical
sleeve. The device changed the weight of his left limb, moving it upward to
give the sensation of being weightless, which requires far fewer brain
signals to move the arm. Later the researchers added weight and created
resistance to reaching, as if his arm were in a tub of molasses. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/us/robotic-technology-to-help-understand-and-treat-strokes.html?_r=4

Links:
Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine
http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/

Julius P. A. Dewald, PhD, PT
http://www.bme.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/dewald.html
http://www.ric.org/aboutus/people/doctors/detail.aspx?doctorId=123