A wearable robot that allows those with spinal cord injuries and fatigue or unable to move to get up and walk: this is Twin, the robotic exoskeleton for the lower limbs that the Italian Institute of Technology – IIT and the Inail prosthesis center have presented today at the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.
Two patients wore it to show how it works.
One of the two, Alex Santucci, also worked with the technicians and researchers in the design phase and acted as a tester with the Rehab Technologies IIT – Inail, the joint laboratory between the Italian Institute of Technology and the Inail Prosthetic Center of Budrio, in the Bologna area.
He himself spoke of the accident that two years ago left him quadriplegic with a “fortunately incomplete” injury between the fifth and sixth vertebrae. And the slow work of first taking a few steps and then walking, with the help of crutches, for up to forty minutes.
The work began in 2016 and over time – with an experiment also carried out at the Montecatone Rehabilitation Institute in Imola and at Villa Beretta, the Costa Masnaga facility in the Lecco area where Alex Zanardi was also hospitalized – it allowed us to arrive at a second less heavy version and more powerful with a four-hour battery life that requires one to recharge.
Twin is controlled with an Android App by the operator who, with the supplied tablet, can adjust the activities and all the movement parameters based on the wearer.
Allowing those in wheelchairs to stand upright has musculoskeletal and circulatory benefits on the functions of the digestive system, without forgetting the psychological ones. And it can be used in rehabilitation for physiotherapy.
Now the goal is to reach the CE marking with an industrial partner, and then get it on the market, available to those who need it.
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