Development of an upper limb patient simulator for physical therapy exercise.

Physical therapist plays an important role to help people to regain the social life from disease and physical handicap. However, they can obtain their skills only from their practical experiences. The physical therapist trainee can enrich is experience only from the clinical practical training and this opportunity is limited. Therefore, we have been developing the upper limb patient simulator, which reproduce the stiffness of elbow joint to allow trainees to increase the opportunities to obtain the practical exercise of the physical therapy. The system reproduces the diseases by generating stiffness of the elbow joint, when the trainee tries to flex the elbow joint of the patient. We developed a mechanical part and a control system to realize the patient conditions and the full system has been evaluated by veteran physical therapists.