Tremor constitutes the most common motor dis- order, and poses a functional problem to a large number of patients. Despite of the considerable experience in tremor management, current treatment based on drugs or surgery does not attain an effective attenuation in 25 ％ of patients, motivating the need for research in new therapeutic alterna- tives. In this context, this paper presents the concept design, development, and preliminary validation of a soft wearable robot for tremor assessment and suppression. The TREMOR neurorobot comprises a Brain Neural Computer Interface that monitors the whole neuromusculoskeletal system, aiming at characterizing both voluntary movement and tremor, and a Functional Electrical Stimulation system that compensates for tremulous movements without impeding the user perform functional tasks. First results demonstrate the performance of the TREMOR neurorobot as a novel means of assessing and attenuating pathological tremors.
J.A. Gallego D. Farina D.B. Popovic M. Manto T. D’Alessio J.L. Pons E. Rocon J. Ib(a)(n)ez J.L. Dideriksen A.D. Koutsou R. Paradiso M.B. Popovic J.M. Belda–Lois F. Gianfelici
Bioengineering Group,Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient(i)ficas,CSIC,Spain Dept. Neurorehab Eng,Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience,Georg-August University,G¨ottin Sensory-Motor Interaction,Department of Health Science and Technology,Aalborg University,Denmark Fac Service de Neurologie,H(o)pital Erasme-ULB,Bruxelles,Belgium Biolab,University of Rome TRE,Rome,Italy Sensory-Motor Interaction,Department of Health Science and Technology,Aalborg University,Denmark SMARTEX s.r.l,Italy UNA Systems,Serbia Instituto de Biomec(a)nica de Valencia,Spain