Good-bye, Wheelchair
By Eliza Strickland
NOTE: This is an abstract of the entire article, which appeared in the January 2012 issue of the IEEE Spectrum magazine.
Click here to read the entire article, including a video of the Ekso suit in use.
In a warehouse that looks like a cross between a mad inventor’s garage and a climbing gym, a pair of mechanical legs hangs from the ceiling on ropes. With the quiet whir of four motors, one in each hip and knee, the legs take a step, then another and another. This is an exoskeleton walking suit, and it is taking the hundreds of thousands of steps that regulators demand to prove that it’s no mere toy but a reliable medical device, one that just might change the lives of people who thought they’d never again rise from a wheelchair. The Berkeley, Calif., warehouse is the home of Ekso Bionics (formerly known as Berkeley Bionics), a young company that’s about to step out onto the world stage.
Early this year the company will begin selling its Ekso suit to rehab clinics in the United States and Europe, to allow patients with spinal cord injuries to train with the device under supervision. By the middle of 2012, the company plans to have a model for at-home physical therapy.
When you don the Ekso, you are essentially strapping yourself to a sophisticated robot. It supports its own 20-kilogram weight via the skeletal legs and footrests and takes care of the calculations needed for each step. Your job is to balance your upper body, shifting your weight as you plant a walking stick on the right; your physical therapist will then use a remote control to signal the left leg to step forward. In a later model the walking sticks will have motion sensors that communicate with the legs, allowing the user to take complete control.
A few other companies around the world are bringing out exoskeletons for people with disabilities, but Ekso Bionics’ push in 2012 may give it a market advantage. Ten top U.S. rehab clinics have already signed up for the first batch of production units.
STEPPING OUT
At Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York City, Robert Woo uses the Ekso to walk again.
The Ekso was at Mount Sinai for only a week’s tryout. Kristjan T. Ragnarsson, the chairman of Mount Sinai’s department of rehabilitation medicine, expects the hospital to buy a device of its own this year for the steep price of about US $100 000; that price should fall as production increases.
The company expects to test its physical therapy model soon on patients with other diagnoses, like multiple sclerosis and stroke. And by 2014, it plans to release a personal model that can be used not just for rehab but for everyday living.
Before that day comes, though, Ekso Bionics must get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by proving both the device’s safety and its benefits. And its engineers must work out how the user will initiate more complicated movements, like climbing stairs and sitting down.
