JP2002035063A - Limb drive with automatic assistance function provided with information presentation means - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] For patients performing rehabilitation, etc., they cannot recognize the power they are exerting during automatic assistive exercise,
Abstract: Provided is a limb driving device that enables the user to perceive by visual, auditory, or tactile sense instead of a paralyzed limb. A limb driving device for driving a limb along a previously set trajectory includes a limb (10) of a patient (101).
Load measuring means 104 for measuring the load generated by the load 5; and teaching point updating means 110 for advancing the target position of the limb driving device along the set trajectory according to the magnitude and direction of the load.
And a device tip driving means 103 for driving the tip of the limb driving device to the target position, and an information presenting means 102 for presenting a tangential or normal component of the load with respect to the set trajectory as visual / audible / tactile information. , 115 are provided.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to relaxation, joint range-of-motion training, muscle-strengthening training, and sustained-strength training for the purpose of correcting systemic dysfunction, improving muscle and skeletal system functions, and maintaining and improving health. A device that can easily perform so-called exercise therapy, which provides training, coordination training, neuromuscular re-education, and other training, or passive exercise for joint soft tissue repair and orthopedic surgery to maintain and expand the range of motion of joints A load measuring means for measuring the load generated by the limb of the patient, and a device for driving the limb along a previously set trajectory, and following the set trajectory according to the magnitude and direction of the load. Means for updating a teaching point for advancing the target position of the device by means of the device, means for driving the distal end of the device to the target position, and a tangent or normal to the load generated by the limb of the patient with respect to the set trajectory. The components of the direction, belonging to the limb driving device provided with a means for presenting the patient as the information of the visual, hearing, touch.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The invention to be discussed below is intended for exercise training involving muscle strength generation by a patient's voluntary intention, that is, automatic assisting exercise, among so-called exercise therapies. This training is to be performed after the range of motion training immediately after the occurrence of disorders such as central nervous system diseases such as stroke and spinal injury, for example,
After this training, proceed to standing balance training and walking training in a standing position. In the case of a patient who performs this training, the muscular strength generated by the patient is weak, and it is often difficult to support his or her own legs. In the automatic assisting exercise, training for re-learning the motor function is performed, not simply restoring muscle strength. Here, it is important to sense the weak muscular strength generated by the patient, relieve the weight of the limb and repeatedly execute the exercise along a predetermined trajectory, and re-learn the exercise. Conventionally, as in the invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10-192350, a weak muscular strength generated by a patient is sensed, the limb is relieved from its own weight, and the limb is repeatedly assisted by a movement along a predetermined trajectory. There was something to do.

[0003]

However, there is a problem that the prior art is insufficient for re-learning of exercise. Paralyzed patients are often unable to fully recognize their own power and exercise vaguely. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to present a force exerted by the patient to a patient while performing a so-called automatic assisting exercise.

[0004]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention of a limb drive device with an automatic assisting function according to claim 1 of the present application is intended to perform exercise therapy in medical rehabilitation or joint soft tissue repair in orthopedic surgery. Load measurement that measures the load generated by the patient's limb in a limb drive that performs passive movement of the joint to maintain and expand the range of motion of the joint and that drives the limb along a predetermined trajectory Means, updating means of a teaching point for advancing the target position of the limb driving device along the set trajectory according to the magnitude and direction of the load, device tip driving means for driving the limb driving device tip to the target position, Information presenting means for presenting a component of a load in a tangent or normal direction to the set trajectory as visual, auditory, or tactile information. And butterflies. According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving device according to the first aspect, a component in a tangential direction with respect to a set trajectory of a load generated by the limb of the patient,
An information combination presenting means for presenting information as a combination of visual, auditory, and tactile information is provided. According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving device according to the first or second aspect, the fluctuation presenting means for presenting a short-term fluctuation and / or a long-term fluctuation of a component tangential to a set trajectory of a load generated by the limb of the patient. It is characterized by having. According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving apparatus according to any one of the first to third aspects, in a load generated by the limb of the patient, a component in a tangential direction with respect to a predetermined trajectory is calculated by:
The present invention is characterized in that equidistant scale presenting means for presenting scales at regular intervals is provided. According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving device according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, in a load generated by the limb of the patient, a component in a tangential direction with respect to a predetermined trajectory has an unequal scale. It is characterized by comprising unequal interval scale presenting means for presenting on an interval scale. According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving apparatus according to any one of the first to fifth aspects, a low-pass filter is provided for processing of visual, auditory, and tactile information. The invention according to claim 7 is the invention according to claim 1.
7. The limb driving device according to any one of the above-described items 6, further comprising a signal change time point notifying means for notifying a patient of a moment when the signal changes. According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving device according to any one of the first to seventh aspects, a muscle part which indicates a place where the patient should generate muscular strength by applying a stimulus to a corresponding muscle part. An indicator is provided. The invention according to claim 9 is the limb driving device according to any one of claims 1 to 8,
A maximum load value presenting means for presenting the maximum value of the load generated by the limb of the patient is provided. According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving device according to any one of the first to ninth aspects, there is provided a deviation presenting unit that presents a deviation between a direction of a load generated by the limb of the patient and a set trajectory. It is characterized by the following. The invention according to claim 11 is the invention according to claims 1 to 10
The limb driving device according to any one of the above, further comprising a load tangent component presenting means for presenting a value obtained by dividing a component in a tangential direction to a set trajectory of a load generated by the limb of the patient by a component orthogonal to the set trajectory. It is characterized by the following. According to a twelfth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving apparatus according to any one of the first to tenth aspects, the posture of the limb determined based on a load generated by the limb of the patient, and the posture of the limb set in advance. And a posture difference presenting means for presenting a difference between the two. According to a thirteenth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the limb driving device according to any one of the first to twelfth aspects, further comprising upper and lower limit manual adjustment means for manually adjusting the lower limit and the upper limit of the load to be presented. A limb driving device with an automatic assisting function. The invention according to claim 14 is the limb driving device according to any one of claims 1 to 12,
Upper and lower limit values to determine the upper and lower limits of the load to be presented based on the previous treatment data, based on the maximum value of the load generated during the treatment, or based on the average value of the load generated during the treatment Means are provided. Claim 1
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the limb driving device according to any one of the first to twelfth aspects, further comprising upper and lower limit value changing means for gradually changing the upper limit value and the lower limit value of the load to be presented according to the stage of the treatment. It is characterized by having. According to a sixteenth aspect of the present invention, in the limb driving apparatus according to any one of the first to fifteenth aspects, there is provided a side view presenting means for presenting a view of a load generated by the limb of the patient and components thereof as viewed from the side. It is characterized by having. The invention according to claim 17 is claim 1
17. The limb driving device according to any one of the above items 16, further comprising a presentation unit that makes the sound presented to the patient a continuous sound or an intermittent sound. As described above, by providing these information presenters, it becomes possible for the patient to perceive the force he or she is exerting during the automatic assisting movement by visual, auditory, or tactile sense instead of the paralyzed limb, Encourage patients during treatment.

[0005]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention. 2 and 3 show an information presenter used in the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes a patient who is performing exercise therapy or passive exercise. Reference numeral 105 denotes a limb portion for performing treatment or training. The limb portion 105 performs a so-called automatic assisting motion by the limb driving unit 103. That is, the patient 101 strives to move on the orbit 112 set in advance by himself / herself.
3 to the force sensor 104. Force sensor 104
Is decomposed into a component 107 in a tangential direction to a predetermined trajectory and a component 108 orthogonal to the trajectory. A control unit (not shown) determines an operation command to be sent to the limb driving unit 103 based on impedance control in robotics. When carrying out the automatic assisting motion, the impedance in the tangential direction with respect to the orbit set in advance is set low, and the impedance in the direction orthogonal to this is set high. Therefore, the limb driving unit 103 advances the movement following the movement of the limb in the set trajectory direction while suppressing the movement of the limb 105 in the set trajectory direction. On the other hand, the component 107 in the orbit direction of the load applied to the force sensor 104 is set in advance.
ON from the parallel IO board 111 according to the size of
A signal is output. The ON signal is sent to the information presenter 102 (FIG. 2) to turn on the mounted LED 114 and operate the built-in vibrator (not shown). Or,
Music or voice is generated from the speaker 109 via the circuit 110. With these information presenters, the patient 101 can perceive the force exerted by the patient 101 during the automatic assisting movement by visual, auditory, or tactile sense instead of the paralyzed limb. In addition, it is also possible to present these pieces of information on the same scale. For example, when a total of five LEDs are turned on as shown in FIG. 2, music or voice sounds while the top three are turned on, and the vibrator vibrates when the top LED is turned on. Various combinations can be considered. Alternatively, the above content may be identified by making the vibration sound of the vibrator or the sound emitted by the speaker a continuous sound or an intermittent sound. Further, the presentation device may be of a stationary type instead of a portable type as shown in the figure. The visual information presenter may be a device that displays a diagram viewed from the side as shown in FIG. The presenter 115 indicates the load generated by the limb of the patient and the components thereof, so that the patient or the physiotherapist can grasp the load generation status every moment. Auto-assisted exercise usually involves dozens of repetitive exercises each year. The load generated by the patient's limb changes from moment to moment within each treatment.
In addition to displaying this short-term change in real time,
For example, the maximum value or the average value may be stored every time and presented as a long-term fluctuation. The scale of the load to be presented may be equally spaced at the width of each stage.
Alternatively, if it is difficult for the patient to reach the highest level, the width at the top may be reduced. In the present invention, the information presenter 102 is expected to obtain an effect such as so-called biofeedback in addition to the automatic assisting exercise, and it is not desirable that the change of the signal to be presented exceeds the cognitive speed of the patient. In order to prevent the signal from changing extremely fast, it is possible to pass the signal through a low-pass filter, for example. Presenter 1 above
In 02, when the value of the load generated by the limb of the patient is low on the scale, the information perceivable by the patient is “low evaluation”.
However, at the same time, the time change of the load may be monitored to notify the patient that the load is rising or falling. In order for the patient to indicate where the muscle strength should be generated, a stimulus may be given directly to the relevant site, for example, the abdominal muscle or the rectus femoris. The types of stimulation include vibration, electric, magnetic,
Needles and the like are conceivable. As well as fluctuations in load during treatment,
In order to enhance the patient's sense of achievement, the maximum value of the load generated by the patient may be presented.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a process for presenting information in the present invention. First, the initialization processing unit 201 initializes the board 111 and initializes a variable used as a presentation parameter in a conventional automatic assistive exercise device that performs a presentation parameter extraction unit 205 in a distance calculation unit to an equilibrium point. Is provided. The presentation parameter is the information presentation unit 2
03 and presented according to a predetermined scale as described above. Each time the operation cycle ends, the processing parameters of 204 reset the presentation parameters. In the above description, the presentation parameter has been described as “the component of the load generated by the limb of the patient in the tangential direction to the set trajectory”. With this presentation parameter, even when the load itself generated by the patient's limb deviates greatly from the set trajectory, the higher the value, the higher the evaluation. Direction of load 106 generated by the patient's limb
Is particularly problematic, for example, the cosine of the angle deviation between the load direction 106 and the set trajectory direction 107 may be taken and used as the presentation parameter. Alternatively, in order to simultaneously evaluate both the magnitude and direction of the force, a component 107 of the load generated by the patient's limb in the tangential direction to the set trajectory divided by the component 108 orthogonal to the component may be presented. Good.
When the deviation of the direction is presented, the presentation parameters as described above do not indicate the specific position of the patient, and therefore, for example, when it is necessary to apply a force to bend the knee, the presenter can sense the deviation. The only information is that the motion direction is out of the set trajectory. To solve this problem, by solving the inverse dynamics problem in robotics for the limb of the patient, the posture that the limb is going to take from the load 106 generated by the limb of the patient is obtained, and the posture of the limb set in advance is determined. May be presented. For example,
It would be better to use the means of generating the voice of the physiotherapist in charge to give instructions such as "bend your knees more." The setting of the scale width when presenting the size of the load is, for example, a lower limit of 3.5 kgf (=
0.36N), the upper limit may be fixed in advance to 4Kgf (= 0.41N) or the like, but there is no muscle activity that should not contribute to the predetermined exercise called compensation movement, or the degree of muscle tone is determined. It may be manual so that the physiotherapist can make adjustments while checking. Alternatively, the load generated by the patient may be stored as the previous treatment data, and the scale width may be determined based on this. Alternatively, the maximum value of the load generated during each treatment may be recorded, and the maximum value on the scale may be determined to determine the width. In that case, the load signal may be passed through a low-pass filter in order to prevent the maximum value from being a measurement error or an instantaneous value. Alternatively, the average value of the load generated during the treatment may be obtained, and the average value may be used as the median value on the scale. Since the muscle strength is low in the early stage of the treatment, the maximum level may be easily reached, and the scale width may be gradually changed according to the stage of the treatment as the treatment progresses and the muscle strength increases.

[0007]

As described above, in the present invention, relaxation, joint range-of-motion training, muscle-strengthening training, and the like are provided for the purpose of correcting a decrease in systemic function, improving the functions of the musculoskeletal system, and maintaining / improving the state of health. In a limb drive device that can easily carry out so-called exercise therapy, which performs sustained strength training, coordination training, neuromuscular re-education and other training, among so-called exercise therapy, exercise training with weak muscle strength generation of patients, That is, it is possible to provide an automatic assisting exercise, and it is possible to solve the problem of the conventional vague exercise in which the degree of the force exerted by oneself cannot be sufficiently recognized by oneself.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a limb driving device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a first information presenter employed by the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of a second information presenter employed by the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a process for presenting information in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 101 Patient undergoing exercise therapy or passive joint exercise 102 Information presenter 103 Limb drive unit 104 Force sensor 105 Limb part to be treated or trained 106 Direction of load generated by limb of patient 107 Tangent direction to predetermined trajectory 108 Component orthogonal to the tangential direction to the preset trajectory 109 Speaker 110 Circuit 111 Parallel IO board 112 Preset trajectory 113 Limb holder 114 LED 115 Information presenter as the second embodiment

Claims (17)

[Claims] 1. A limb driving device for performing exercise therapy in medical rehabilitation or performing passive exercise for joint soft tissue repair and orthopedic surgery in order to maintain and expand the range of motion of a joint. A limb driving device for driving a limb, a load measuring means for measuring a load generated by a limb of a patient, and a teaching point updating means for advancing a target position of the limb driving device along the set trajectory according to the magnitude and direction of the load. Device tip driving means for driving the tip of the limb driving device to the target position, and information presenting means for presenting a tangential or normal component to the set trajectory of the load as visual, auditory, or tactile information. A limb driving device with an automatic assistance function, comprising: 2. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising information combination presenting means for presenting a tangential component to a set trajectory of a load generated by the limb of the patient as a combination of visual, auditory, and tactile information. A limb drive with an automatic assistance function. 3. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising a fluctuation presenting means for presenting a short-term fluctuation and / or a long-term fluctuation of a component tangential to a set trajectory of a load generated by the patient's limb. A limb driving device with an automatic assisting function. 4. The limb driving device according to claim 1, wherein, in a load generated by the limb of the patient, a component in a tangential direction with respect to a predetermined trajectory is expressed on a scale with graduations at regular intervals. A limb driving device with an automatic assistance function, characterized by comprising an equally spaced scale presenting means for presenting. 5. The limb driving device according to claim 1, wherein a component in a tangential direction to a predetermined trajectory in a load generated by the limb of the patient is scaled at unequal intervals. A limb driving device with an automatic assisting function, comprising unequally-spaced scale presenting means for presenting the limb. 6. The limb driving apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a low-pass filter for processing of visual, auditory, and tactile information. 7. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising a signal change time notifying unit for notifying a patient of a moment when the signal has changed. apparatus. 8. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising a muscle part indicating means for indicating a place where the patient should generate a muscular strength by applying a stimulus to a corresponding muscle part. A limb driving device with an automatic assistance function, comprising: 9. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising a load maximum value presenting means for presenting a maximum value of a load generated by the limb of the patient. Functional limb drive. 10. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising: deviation presenting means for presenting a deviation between a direction of a load generated by the limb of the patient and a set trajectory. Limb drive with automatic assistance function. 11. The limb driving device according to claim 1, wherein a component obtained by dividing a tangential component of a load generated by the limb of the patient with respect to a set trajectory by a component orthogonal to the set trajectory. A limb driving device with an automatic assistance function, comprising a load tangent component presenting means for presenting. 12. The limb driving device according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein a difference between a limb posture determined based on a load generated by the limb of the patient and a preset limb posture is determined. A limb driving device with an automatic assistance function, comprising a posture difference presenting means for presenting. 13. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising limit value manual adjustment means for manually adjusting a lower limit value and an upper limit value of the presented load. Limb drive with automatic assistance function. 14. The limb drive device according to claim 1, wherein the load generated during the treatment is based on the maximum value of the load generated during the treatment, based on the previous treatment data, or based on the maximum value of the load generated during the treatment. An upper and lower limit value determining means for determining upper and lower limits of a load to be presented based on an average value. 15. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising upper / lower limit value changing means for gradually changing the upper limit value and the lower limit value of the presented load according to the stage of the treatment. A limb driving device with an automatic assisting function. 16. The limb driving device according to claim 1, further comprising a side view presenting means for presenting a view of a load generated by the limb of the patient and components thereof as viewed from the side. Characteristic limb drive with automatic assistance function. 17. The limb driving apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a presentation unit configured to provide a continuous sound or an intermittent sound as a sound to be presented to a patient. Drive.