MOTION
Mechanised Orthosis for children with neurological disorders
Priority Axis
Technological and Social InnovationSpecific objective
Technological Innovation
Lead partner
JUNIAContact
Start Date
03/01/2019End Date
31/03/2023Project budget
7 412 176 €ERDF amount
4 445 720 €ERDF rate
60%About
Common challenge
According to Beckhung (2008) 54% of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) can walk without aids,16% of patients will need assistive devices to walk and 30% are not able to walk at 5 years of age. This means that 46% of CP patients can possibly benefit from innovative technology like exoskeleton, and approximately 4000 children (6500 in EU) below the age of 10. Usual possibilities for adults are hospital or home use. Patients can be brought to a hospital, equipped with exoskeleton rehabilitation devices and staffed with trained medical professionals. In the second option, patients may purchase an exoskeleton device for home use. The patient and the primary caregivers must be trained in the proper equipment operations. Today, for children, mechatronic approaches to stimulate walking are still subject to a lack of international standards, protocols and specific exoskeleton. The common challenge is to contribute to improve the delivery of technological innovation, in the sectors of health.
Overall objective
Main outputs
Cross border approach
Main Achievements
According to Beckhung (2008) 54% of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) can walk without assistance,16% of patients will need assistive devices to walk and 30% are not able to walk at 5 years of age. This means that 46% of CP patients can possibly benefit from innovative technology like an exoskeleton, and approximately 4000 children (6500 in EU) below the age of 10. Patients can be brought to a hospital, equipped with exoskeleton rehabilitation devices and staffed with trained medical professionals. In the second option, patients may purchase an exoskeleton device for home use. The patient and the primary caregivers must be trained in the proper equipment operations.
Today, for children, mechatronic approaches to stimulate walking are still subject to a lack of international standards, protocols and specific exoskeleton. So thanks to the collaboration between the differents partners questionnaires for parents and professionnal have been wrote and translated in 4 differents langages to have a state of knowledge and used of these technologies. We are actually doing the statistical analysis of the results. More than 100 persons answered to this questionnaires(O4).
Began since 2 years the project is actually in the development phase, with a full implication and interaction between the 14 partners ; one partner withdraw the project in january 2020.
We decided to propose 3 mechanical modules one for the ankle foot, one for the hip and one for the knee wich will be assemblied to define the lower limbs exoskeleton (O1). The ankle foot module, reach TRL4, it will be tested in a few months, hip and lowerlimb exoskeleton reached a TRL3 level, level 4 will reach in a few months (O3).
A smart garment is currently in progress (O2). An ECG electrode has been developped and compared with non textile qualified existing systems during specific tests on helathy persons, the temperature electrode performance achievement is currently running in laboratory too.
A cross border cooperation between the clinicians from United Kindom, Nedeerland and Belgium and technical teams is real and allow us to propose today different clinical protocols to tests the differents modules.
We also create a transregional network to transfer technology and related knowledge from research to practical application by partiping to congress linking with research, industry, healthcare professionals and users. Ttool for communication around the projectsite exists: social Network, Twitter, LinkedIn and a Website.