PHYSIOFUTURIST DOMAIN
Robotics and Exoskeletons
Rehabilitation robots and wearable exoskeletons can deliver intensive, repeatable movement practice and physical assistance. They are most useful when a therapist actively adjusts the task, assistance, feedback, and progression. More repetitions do not automatically produce meaningful recovery, so outcomes must include real function, participation, safety, and the patient’s experience.
Questions for practice
- Which problem would this address, and what outcomes matter to the person receiving care?
- What evidence supports this application, population, and setting?
- What skills, safeguards, resources, and accountability would its use require?
- What would justify continuing, changing, or stopping its use?
This is an introductory overview of a domain in the PhysioFuturist model. Specific products and clinical uses need their own evidence assessment.
Read the Perspective for the reasoning behind these questions or explore the autonomy-accountability continuum.