TECH

Presented rob that will allow locomotion to children who do not walk

This robot (exoskeleton) is being developed under the Spanish ATLAS 2020 project and will be presented on Tuesday at one of the sessions of the 20th International Robotics Conference CLAWAR - International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and Support Technologies for Mobile Machines - which will take place until Wednesday, at the Higher Institute of Engineering of Porto (ISEP).
The exoskeleton, a pioneer in the pediatric area for neuromuscular diseases, allows locomotion and gait training for children with spinal cord injuries and type 2 spinal muscular atrophy, the second most common neuromuscular disease in childhood, researcher Elena García told Lusa , of the Spanish company Marsi Bionics, responsible for the project.
According to the specialist, this robot, lightweight (weighs about 12 kilograms) and adjustable in size for children from three to 14 years, allows them to improve motor level, reduce or delay complications, increase functional independence, quality of life and decrease disability.

Spinal muscular atrophy type 2, said the researcher, is a purely motor degenerative disease, which causes wastage and progressive muscle weakness and manifests when the babies are six months old, being able to remain seated "but never walk.""Different complications arise during the course of the disease, including joint deformities, scoliosis, respiratory disorders, hip dislocation, osteoporosis and fractures considered by clinicians as side effects of loss of walking ability," he explained.The life expectancy of these children, continued Elena García, is relatively short, mainly due to the deterioration of the respiratory function, accelerated by the occurrence of scoliosis.According to the researcher, clinicians believe that walking plays an important role in delaying complications, a hypothesis reinforced by recent studies showing that regular exercise can increase the life expectancy of these children by 50%.

However, to date, there was no medical device on the market that could provide them with locomotion and thus postpone complications resulting from the disease, a need that can now be bridged with this exoskeleton, he said.Clinical trials with the robot have already been conducted in Spain, at the Hospital Infantil de Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona, and at the University Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid, with "successful results," he added.

The exoskeleton was industrialized by the company Marsi Bionics and will be commercialized until 2018, and is now available for rent to research institutions and hospitals.

ATLAS 2020, which began in 2015, was founded by the European Commission, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the company Marsi Bionics, which develops technologies for children with neuromuscular and degenerative diseases.

It is a multidisciplinary project that includes around 20 scientists and is also supported by the Center for Automation and Robotics (CSIC-UPM), the Valencia Orthopedic Center and the CIGAT (Center for Global Intervention and Early Learning) in Madrid.The CLAWAR conference, where the project will be presented, focuses on the area of ​​climbing robots, locomotion robots and biologically inspired robots designed and built to mimic (in varying degrees) living beings as well as supporting technologies to mobile robotics, said ISEP professor Manuel Silva, in charge of organizing the event.In the area of ​​climbing robots, bipeds and quadrupeds, will be presented, for example, the climbing robot Vortex, which climbs walls to perform inspection tasks using suction.The CLAWAR conference, which in this edition expects more than 100 participants, has been organized in different countries throughout its editions, such as Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Turkey, Singapore, Australia and China, the organizer concluded.

Lusa