Lower-Limb Exoskeleton Systems for Rehabilitation and/or Assistance: A Review

Abstract

Disability is a condition that directly affects the natural performance of human abilities such as movement due to diseases such as cerebrovascular accident (CVA), spinal cord injury (SCI), among others. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a billion people, about 15% of the world's population, experience at least one form of disability caused by aging and the onset of multiple diseases. Lower limb exoskeletons are a set of links connected by joints that are used for multiple applications, including rehabilitation and/or assistance, especially for the elderly. In this recent review, several lower limb exoskeletons are analyzed in categories that are common requirements to propose conceptual designs of new exoskeletons such as the commercial name, the degrees of freedom (DoF), the mechanism that covers the part of the lower limb, the biosignal that controls the functions of the exoskeleton of the lower limbs, the characteristics of the test subjects that participated in the clinical evaluations, the pathology of the end users or potential clients, the application for which they are being designed and the Technological Readiness Level (TRL) which is a NASA measurement scale.