Control Design and Preliminary Evaluation of a Medical Education Simulator for Ankle Tendon Reflex Assessment Training

Ankle (or Achilles) tendon reflex is commonly assessed in a neurological examination. For a clinician trainee to master the correct assessment technique of Achilles tendon reflex and to be able to distinguish among various reflex activity levels indicating health or abnormality, repetitive training and practice are necessary. We propose to develop a robotic medical education training simulator that would generate a realistic reflex behavior depending on the simulated reflex activity level selected when given a tendon tap assessment. This development was based on an existing ankle-foot simulator [5]. A modified sensing system is still under development. In this paper, a reflex model was developed to estimate the ankle reflexive torque based on the input tap force. This reflex model prediction was validated in simulation and then implemented into our robotic simulator prototype. Preliminary benchtop results demonstrated that our simulator was able to accurately deliver the reflexive torque pattern required to simulate the clinical reflex movement to the trainee.