The MIT Anklebot

Though we'd like it to, "robotic therapy" will not treat your Roomba's delusions of overlordian grandeur. Rather, we're talking machines which snap onto human appendages to assist with movement — showing particular promise in the rehabilitation of stroke victims. MIT already developed a bot to assist with arm movement that provides rehab patients with "twice the improvement" as those using traditional therapy. Now they've released the Anklebot (prototype) which uses a less cumbersome approach than the Swiss to help with wrist movement. Oh ok, the ankle but couldn't they at least call it something like Ankleborg3000 to get our geek juice flowin'? In fact, the team at MIT envision a gym full of rehabilitation equipment which we can only hope will make patients look as intimidating as this.

[Gil @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Sounds like they just want to get a piece of the action in the exoskeleton market that is fully japanese right now (and with actual working models not MIT's attempts at a model)

[Brian Peiris @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

How painful would that be if it malfunctioned?

[RogueFace @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Now, how long until we have a similar item for performance enhancement? I want my cybernetic leg attachments that let me leap tall buildings in a single bound!!!