Robotic Therapy and the Paradox of the Diminishing Number of Degrees of Freedom.

There has been remarkable growth in the development and application of robotics to ameliorate or remediate impairment. This growth is associated with a) the understanding that plasticity is a fundamental property of the adult human brain and might be harnessed to remap or create new neural pathways and b) that robots that can safely interact with humans and assist human performance. This article discusses whether robotic therapy has achieved a level of maturity to justify its broad adoption as a rehabilitative tool. How to improve outcomes further and how to select degrees of freedom to optimize care to particular patients is also discussed.