A review: A Comprehensive Review of Soft and Rigid Wearable Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices with a Focus on the Shoulder Joint

Abstract

AbstractThe importance of the human upper limb role in performing daily life and personal activities is significant. Improper functioning of this organ due to neurological disorders or surgeries can greatly affect the daily activities performed by patients. This paper aims to comprehensively review soft and rigid wearable robotic devices provided for rehabilitation and assistance focusing on the shoulder joint. In the last two decades, many devices have been proposed in this regard, however, there have been a few groups whose devices have had effective therapeutic capability with acceptable clinical evidence. Also, there were not many portable, lightweight and user-friendly devices. Therefore, this comprehensive study could pave the way for achieving optimal future devices, given the growing need for these devices. According to the results, the most commonly used plan was Exoskeleton, the most commonly used actuators were electrical, and most devices were considered to be stationary and rigid. By doing these studies, the advantages and disadvantages of each method are also presented. The presented devices each have a new idea and attitude in a specific field to solve the problems of movement disorders and rehabilitation, which were in the form of prototypes, initial clinical studies and sometimes comprehensive clinical and commercial studies. These plans need more comprehensive clinical trials to become a complete and efficient plan. This article could be used by researchers to identify and evaluate the important features and strengths and weaknesses of the plans to lead to the presentation of more optimal plans in the future.