B2A Technology‘s teams (Alstef, BA Systèmes & BA Healthcare) wish you a happy new year 2020
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BA Healthcare is part of the “Handicap Innovation Territoire” project to develop a diagnostic aid solution for patients who need to have walking rehabilitation after a stroke.
The “Handicap Innovation Territoire” (HIT) project led by Lorient agglomeration in partnership with the CMRRF of Kerpape (a rehabilitation center) and ID2Santé competitiveness cluster is one of the 24 projects which have won the call for “Territoires d’innovation” projects (i.e. Innovative Regions), funded as part of the Investissements d’avenir Program (i.e. Investments for the future). The project aims at transforming disability into a driver for social and technological innovation at the service of citizens, and promoting the economic attractiveness of the region as well.
Already bringing together about 40 partners (local authorities, institutions, academics, companies, start-ups, associations, etc.), the HIT project will be carried out over a period of 8 years, through numerous actions conducted in the region, the creation of the “CoWork’HIT”, an expertise and resource center on disability, and by supporting the development of about twenty companies and start-ups dedicated to innovation in the field of disability.
BA Healthcare will participate in the project during the first 2 years to develop a software solution that will enable to make accurate diagnoses of post-stroke patients’ condition as part of their walking rehabilitation program.
BA Healthcare will provide its expertise acquired in the fields of functional rehabilitation and personal autonomy, in particular, with Robo-K, the walking rehabilitation robot the company has developed for patients who suffer from walking disability with a neurological origin.
Within HIT project, BA Healthcare will develop an autonomous system capable of acquiring a certain amount of data (here via the use of multi-cameras capturing patients’ walking movements) to establish the patient’s state criteria and thus evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment. The final objective is to be able to offer rehabilitation centers a software solution for recording and verifying their rehabilitation care. This project uses innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
A new clinical study has begun in November at the University Hospital of Rennes and the CMRRF of Kerpape with two walking rehabilitation robots.
In line with Robo-K collaborative project carried out by BA Healthcare from the end of 2012 to January 2017 to develop a mobile robot for gait training, a new clinical study has begun in November at the University Hospital of Rennes and the CMRRF of Kerpape. 70 patients are involved in this 3-year project which aims at demonstrating the relevance of a robotic system use in post-stroke walking rehabilitation.
The two original prototypes developed as part of Robo-K project have been completely overhauled and benefit from numerous improvements to meet the partners’ requests for evolution. The suspension has been modified, different speed levels have been added and new computer developments have been carried out to simplify, among other things, the use of the interface by practitioners.
After an important phase of tests conducted to verify the efficiency and robustness of the developments, the two demonstrators were fully operational to join the study.
BA Healthcare has provided the two robots to both study facilities. After training the physiotherapists to use the device, BA Healthcare provides technical support during the entire duration of the clinical trials.
Two groups of patients are constituted:
A blind study (i.e., without knowing which group will have benefited from which therapeutic framework) will allow the results of each group to be analyzed over time and determine the clinical effectiveness of the device in post-stroke gait rehabilitation.
This competition, which aimed at identifying and rewarding innovative projects that reduce disability and improve rehabilitation, rewarded Robo-K, the walking rehabilitation robot developed by BA Healthcare.
During its 32nd annual congress, the French Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (SOFMER) organized for the second consecutive year the “Disability and Innovation” competition.
The winners of the 5 categories of the competition were announced on October 7th, last day of the congress: connected object, services to individuals, evaluation, sustainable development and rehabilitation. ROBO-K won the sustainable development and rehabilitation category for the new prospects opened up by the robot in the improvement of patients with walking disorders rehabilitation.
This collaborative project funded by Europe within the FUI 13 began in September 2012. It aims at rehabilitating patients who suffer from walking disability with a neurological origin, whether due to stroke, multiple sclerosis, head trauma, Parkinson’s disease, etc.
To learn how to walk again, patients need… to walk again! This relearning is essentially limited by the patient’s joint pains and the practitioners’ available time. Thanks to an intelligent suspension system that can relieve the patient from 50% of his weight, the stresses on his joints are significantly reduced.
Moreover, the robot localization system offers an autonomous navigation in the rehabilitation center, freeing the physiotherapist who can then focus on his therapeutic support and on encouraging the patient.
Finally, a recording system that store the parameters of the exercises proposed to the patient, offers him a progressive therapy, adapted accordingly to his own progress.
Tests in real conditions during clinical trials at the University Hospital in Rennes and the CMRRF in Kerpape on a sample of 36 patients, lasted 4 weeks. ROBO-K has helped improving significantly their walking performance.For example, on the 10-meter walk test, the patients take 38 seconds at the end of the therapy compared to 54 seconds before. It is noteworthy that all of the walking indicators assessed during the study have been improved.
Based on those promising results, BA Healthcare in partnership with M2S (Biomechanics Laboratory of the University of Rennes 2), continues these developments with ROBO-K II project that began at the end of 2016.
Faithful to the successful DNA of the first ROBO-K project – especially the regulated suspension system – the new device will include biofeedbacks, that is to say a real-time restitution of physiological and biomechanical measurements related to the quality of patients walk.
Planned for the end of 2018, ROBO-K II will be a new step towards more motivating, ecological and efficient gait training.
BA Systèmes and the University of Rennes 2, both partners in Robo-K project, present at Innovatives SHS Fair, the autonomous robot for gait training.
Organized by the Institute of humanities and social sciences of the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), the Innovatives SHS Fair, that will take place on May 17 & 18, 2017, in Marseille (FR) at Palais de l’Europe, promotes activities of valorization and transfer of human and social sciences researches. This event illustrates the ability of research teams to meet society’s expectations by encouraging the transfer of their results to major industrial groups, SMEs, local authorities and associations.
Gathering BA Systèmes, CEA List, Rennes University Hospital, CRPPC/LAUREPS of the University of Rennes 2, CMRRF of Kerpape and Invensense, Robo-K project aims at designing and developing a mobile robot for gait training. Focusing on the practitioners’ activity and involving their mobilization throughout the innovation process, the project enabled the implementation of a dynamic of co-design, leading to the filing of patents involving all technical, clinical and academic partners. This robotic system takes part in the daily practice of physiotherapists or in the organization of health care.
BA Healthcare, which designed the two demonstrators of the Robo-K project, has been much involved, for several years, in research projects and collaborative innovation, placing at the heart of its approach the human and the understanding of the environment in which robots operate. Robo-k is the perfect illustration of a successful combination of skills and know-how between mobile robotics and humanities.
BA Systèmes will present FORWARD, a mobile gait training robot, at the next Innorobo trade show that will take place from May 16 to 18 at the Docks de Paris.
Stemming from Robo-K, an autonomous gait training robot, FORWARD offers a real opportunity to rehabilitate the walk easily, safely and autonomously.
BA Healthcare, sister company of BA Systèmes, provides the medical world with safe and innovative solutions for rehabilitation and autonomy, with a constant care for the well-being and fast recovery of the patients.
With FORWARD, the patient can evolve safely and autonomously. The robot prevents him from falling and guides him through the rehabilitation center or within a residency. The physiotherapist can focus only on motivating the patient and on his progress rather than supporting its weight. Specifically designed for walk rehabilitation after a stroke, the robot is a decisive help to get patients walk as early as possible and as much as possible.
Launched in September 2012, the ROBO-K collaborative project to design a mobile walking rehabilitation robot was completed on January 12th.
A closing meeting was held on January 12th at the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department of the Rennes University Hospital withall the partners, funders and competitiveness clusters involved in the project.
Robo-K is the first autonomous ambulatory device for walking rehabilitation, integrating many technical innovations to offer the patient an ecological rehabilitation, closest as it could be to the natural walk, without restrictions or technical assistance.
A demonstration of the robot allowed the partners to understand and visualize how the device operates in a therapeutic environment.
This meeting was also, and above all, an opportunity to draw up a balance sheet and give the results of an exciting project, both from a human and technical point of view. During three and a half years, ROBO-K has federated 6 partners around the same objective: to learn how to make patients walk again using advanced techniques stemmed from robotics.
ROBO-K project was also innovative in its approach and the importance given to the questions of use and acceptability. These notions were the guiding principles of the project, organized around the idea that a technical object, in order to achieve its therapeutic purpose, has to be part of a process involving different types of people (physicians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, patients) within the organization of the care of a particular institution.
As part of the pilot study aimed at assessing the social acceptability of the use of the device, two demonstrators joined the University Hospital in Rennes and the CMRRF in Kerpape in September 2015.
The results of the study are very encouraging both in terms of the device’s acceptability and its clinical effectiveness. On a sample of 36 patients, the majority of indicators measuring the walking performance improved significantly. For example, the FAC (Functional Ambulation Classifications), a functional walking test that measures ambulation capacity, increases by 40% on average.
The results of other tests confirm the promising clinical efficiency of the robot:
| Before using Robo-K | After 4 weeks of Robo-K use | |
| 10 MWT (10 meter walk test) | 54 seconds | 38 seconds |
| TUG (Time up & Go) | 47 seconds | 32 seconds |
| 6MWD (6-min walk distance) | 103 meters | 164 meters |
This meeting was also the opportunity to announce the new ROBO-K II project launching. A 18-month collaborative project funded by the Brittany region, bringing together BA HEALTHCARE and M2S (Biomechanics Laboratory of Rennes 2 University), ROBO-K II will allow the addition of the biofeedback functionality that could not have been developed during the first project and develop a new mobile device closer to market expectations, including a future industrialization perspective. The ROBO-K II project is to begin in February.
At the same time, as part of a FHU (Federative University Hospital research project), the Rennes University Hospital will continue to use the ROBO-K demonstrator to conduct an efficacy study among 74 additional patients and consolidate those first very encouraging results.
BA Systèmes and BA Healthcare speak about the latest news of the Group’s medical activities.
View it below (click on the menu bar to display the subtitles in English)
Medica is the international meeting for medical technologies and products.
BA Healthcare will be present from November 16 to 19 at Dusseldorf Exhibition Center.
We will introduce for the first time our last product: FORWARD, mobile device for gait rehabilitation.
Come and meet us in Hall 5, booth 5M30G.
The second demonstrator has arrived in Rennes University Hospital, in the functional reeducation department of Pr I. Bonan.
Here again, the machine made a strong impression to the people who attended its arrival in the department, especially when climbing into the elevator.
We are now used to the mapping of the environment and the first tests in real situation. The robot did well, sneaking between the chairs in the corridors. Its holonomic trajectories allow it to pass by the tiniest spaces with much ease and make everybody forgot its large size.
We wait with much enthusiasm for the first feedbacks of the patients and practitioners.
