Rehabilitation – the progressive restoration of lost human functions – must be effective, personalized,
clinically compliant and engaging: while obtaining maximum results with minimal allocation of resources, it must be tailored to each patient’s needs, it must comply with the medical protocol, and it must engage the patient to perform the expected exercises/activities. In order to achieve such objectives, interaction technologies offer a wider range of solutions every year: more versatile, more impactful.
In this context, robots and digital systems constitute groundbreaking opportunities for innovation in rehabilitation, especially through their adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. For instance, they can work as theranostic machines by means of their capability of collecting and analysing valuable data: through this, they can evaluate the rehabilitation outcome, improve diagnostic processes, and offer new insights on clinical conditions and methodologies while they guide the person in training and re-training procedures.
In particular, interaction technologies express their full potential for rehabilitation when they work synergistically, as the following examples highlight. Robots can assist physical, cognitive, and emotional rehabilitation procedures adjusted to patient's motor and physiological data collected by wearable, mobile, and environmental sensors during activities of daily living too. These solutions can act within a network of digital health platforms simultaneously enabling personalized ubiquitous rehabilitation programs and diagnostic-prognostic computational processes. Moreover, biomedical robots and digital health systems can exploit engaging extended reality environments – enriched by serious games and gamification solutions – for motivating the patients during the exercises. This approach can also be used in rehabilitation-like procedures to train the users of bionic prostheses and assistive technologies (e.g., exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces). Furthermore, telerehabilitation can adopt all these systems to assist the functional recovery and foster the psychosocial wellbeing of the patients without any physical contact with the clinicians – a requirement in emergencies like the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Within all these domains, artificial intelligence plays a key role in managing data for enabling the adaptive features of interactive systems. There are several tools in the belt. Additionally, technological synergies can jumpstart human-centered innovations in rehabilitation procedures.
This Research Topic aims at gathering systematic contributions on rehabilitation technologies, focusing on robotic and digital systems and on their actual and potential synergies. The Research Topic addresses topics including, but not limited to, the following:
• Robotics and Mechatronic Systems for Rehabilitation
• Artificial Intelligence for Adaptive and Personalised Rehabilitation
• Digital Health and Digital Therapeutics in Rehabilitation
• Virtual, Augmented, Mixed, Extended Reality in Rehabilitation
• Serious Games and Gamification for Rehabilitation
• Telerehabilitation and Ubiquitous Technologies for Rehabilitation
• Rehabilomics and Digital Biomarkers in Rehabilitation
• Rehabilitation-like Training to Use Prostheses and Assistive Devices
• Computational Models and Digital Twins in Rehabilitation
• Translational Research and Rehabilitation Technology Transfer
• User Experience and Usability in Rehabilitation Technology Design
• Human-Centered Technological Synergies for Rehabilitation
The proposed Research Topic accepts all types of manuscripts. Authors are especially invited to discuss and propose disruptive synergies between their approaches and other solutions, promoting the innovation of human-centered (robotic and digital) systems for rehabilitation.
Topic Editor Prof. Edward Grant is on the Board of Directors of Carolon Inc. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.
Rehabilitation – the progressive restoration of lost human functions – must be effective, personalized,
clinically compliant and engaging: while obtaining maximum results with minimal allocation of resources, it must be tailored to each patient’s needs, it must comply with the medical protocol, and it must engage the patient to perform the expected exercises/activities. In order to achieve such objectives, interaction technologies offer a wider range of solutions every year: more versatile, more impactful.
In this context, robots and digital systems constitute groundbreaking opportunities for innovation in rehabilitation, especially through their adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. For instance, they can work as theranostic machines by means of their capability of collecting and analysing valuable data: through this, they can evaluate the rehabilitation outcome, improve diagnostic processes, and offer new insights on clinical conditions and methodologies while they guide the person in training and re-training procedures.
In particular, interaction technologies express their full potential for rehabilitation when they work synergistically, as the following examples highlight. Robots can assist physical, cognitive, and emotional rehabilitation procedures adjusted to patient's motor and physiological data collected by wearable, mobile, and environmental sensors during activities of daily living too. These solutions can act within a network of digital health platforms simultaneously enabling personalized ubiquitous rehabilitation programs and diagnostic-prognostic computational processes. Moreover, biomedical robots and digital health systems can exploit engaging extended reality environments – enriched by serious games and gamification solutions – for motivating the patients during the exercises. This approach can also be used in rehabilitation-like procedures to train the users of bionic prostheses and assistive technologies (e.g., exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces). Furthermore, telerehabilitation can adopt all these systems to assist the functional recovery and foster the psychosocial wellbeing of the patients without any physical contact with the clinicians – a requirement in emergencies like the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Within all these domains, artificial intelligence plays a key role in managing data for enabling the adaptive features of interactive systems. There are several tools in the belt. Additionally, technological synergies can jumpstart human-centered innovations in rehabilitation procedures.
This Research Topic aims at gathering systematic contributions on rehabilitation technologies, focusing on robotic and digital systems and on their actual and potential synergies. The Research Topic addresses topics including, but not limited to, the following:
• Robotics and Mechatronic Systems for Rehabilitation
• Artificial Intelligence for Adaptive and Personalised Rehabilitation
• Digital Health and Digital Therapeutics in Rehabilitation
• Virtual, Augmented, Mixed, Extended Reality in Rehabilitation
• Serious Games and Gamification for Rehabilitation
• Telerehabilitation and Ubiquitous Technologies for Rehabilitation
• Rehabilomics and Digital Biomarkers in Rehabilitation
• Rehabilitation-like Training to Use Prostheses and Assistive Devices
• Computational Models and Digital Twins in Rehabilitation
• Translational Research and Rehabilitation Technology Transfer
• User Experience and Usability in Rehabilitation Technology Design
• Human-Centered Technological Synergies for Rehabilitation
The proposed Research Topic accepts all types of manuscripts. Authors are especially invited to discuss and propose disruptive synergies between their approaches and other solutions, promoting the innovation of human-centered (robotic and digital) systems for rehabilitation.
Topic Editor Prof. Edward Grant is on the Board of Directors of Carolon Inc. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.
