Development of the ankle joint ROM device using soft actuators

Abstract

Elderly people sometimes become bedridden due to injury or illness. If the bedridden state does not improve, contractures occur in joints. A passive range of motion (ROM) exercises device would be more useful to prevent a contracture of a joints. Therefore, we have developed the ROM device for ankle joint using pneumatic soft actuators. Our previous ROM device was not able to move the joint sufficiently. Therefore, we considered a new ROM device that can provide four types of ROM exercises. The new ROM device consists of two units with different movements. The prototyped device was measured performances to compare with our previous device. The paper reports the structure of the ROM device and results of the evaluation experiment.