Vahid Azimirad, Yaghoub Salekzamani, and Mohsen Ahmadi
Medical robotics, physiotherapist assistant robot, trigger points, myofascial pain
In this paper, a new robotic method for detecting trigger points at the back of the human body is presented. Trigger point is a small and sensitive spot inside a muscle, which becomes painful due to excess load bearing and contraction. Through this method a three-degrees-of-freedom physician-inspired medical robot named TriPon is developed. The robot applies measured force on the predefined points as potential trigger points. The method contains: (a) scanning the back, (b) collecting position data of painful points and (c) producing map of the dorsal trigger points for any individual. For calculating the amount of safe force, the human tissue is simulated and its behaviour under the applied force is studied. Finally to evaluate the method experimentally, the robot is developed and in order to show the effectiveness of the robot, some performance tests including pressure tests, path test and a test on humans are carried out.
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