A body-powered functional upper limb orthosis

This paper describes the development and preliminary testing of a functiona l upper-limb orthosis for people that have limited strength in their arms. This is symptomatic of conditions such as muscular dystrophy (MD), spinal m uscular atrophy (SMA), and partial spinal cord injury. The exoskeletal orth osis is wheelchair mounted, has two links and four degrees of freedom. It u ses linear elastic elements to balance out the effects of gravity in three dimensions. Preliminary results on testing with ten subjects will be presen ted.