2015 年 51 巻 Supplement 号 p. S440-S444
Owing to an increasing number of rehabilitation patients and shortage of professional therapists, various problems associated with ineffective and inadequate care have been occurring at rehabilitation sites. To address this issue, various rehabilitation robots have been developed. However, the development and use of strictly functional and technology centered rehabilitation robots has led to many usage and safety issues at rehabilitation sites (hospitals). Thus, the aim of this study was to determine possible improvements for rehabilitation robots through the opinions and suggestions of the stakeholders via contextual interviews based on usage scenarios as well as to analyze the importance of each recommended improvement through an analytic hierarchy process (AHP).
In this study, the usage scenarios of rehabilitation robots were established through the suggestions of the stakeholders (24 occupational therapists, 2 caregivers, 7 doctors, and 4 robot researchers). In addition, user observations (5 times) and contextual interviews (6 hospitals and 10 therapists had participated) were carried out considering the established usage scenario. The major improvements identified through the interviews and observations were determined on the basis of following category: “support and aid tool for the prevention of compensation actions and range of motion are needed.”
It is expected that rehabilitation robot can be made safe and user friendly by incorporating the improvements suggested in this study.
