Development of a Rehabilitation Robot for the Frozen Shoulder Considering Shoulder Girdle Motion

This study describes a robot that can be used for the rehabilitation of “frozen shoulder" (shoulder arthritis) accompanied by stiffness and pain. Six motions are provided in the rehabilitation; of these, two are the motions of the shoulder girdle and the remainings are the motions of the shoulder joint. In particular, independent rehabilitation motion of the shoulder girdle and shoulder joint is crucial. Therefore, in this study a robot that enables the rehabilitation motion of the shoulder girdle is developed. Moreover, the mechanism of left-right switching of the shoulder with a simple rotation is developed for ambidexterity and cost reduction of the robot to be used in the hospitals. These two factors are validated and evaluated with the real robot and the results show that the robot can perform rehabilitation motion with accuracy and the proposed switching mechanism works perfectly.