A powered, upper body exoskeleton developed by students at the University of Pennsylvania.

Meeting at HUP

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In order to get a better grasp of the applications of our project in physical therapy, our team met with Jennifer Dekerlegand, a physical therapist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).  Jennifer has worked with engineers at Penn before and has a thorough understanding of the world of physical therapy.  The biggest takeaway from our meeting was that developing the strength of the patient is much more important than developing the range of motion.  To that end, we’ve put an emphasis on strength development in our design plans.

Jennifer will be a knowledgeable resource as we continue to develop and refine our project scope.  Already, she’s helped us rule out the use case of a nursing assistance exoskeleton – such a device would be work than it’s worth.  She’s also given us personal stories interacting with the Ekso Bionics lower body exoskeleton and the positive impacts on the patients.