Remote rehabilitation - The NeXOS project: Lessons learnt and questions raised

The NeXOS project was initially aimed at developing a low cost rehabilitation and physiotherapy system for the lower limbs which was capable of being deployed within a user's home environment. The design, development and implementation of the prototype system specifically identified the need to effectively manage the communications between the various members of the research team as well as the engagement with the target user groups. This led to the definition by the team of new means and methods of deployment for such systems. However, the lack of clear information regarding the market potential for systems such as NeXOS raised a number of generic questions relating to issues associated with the identification of the most effective use of technology. The paper sets out and considers the general issues associated with the design and implementation of the NeXOS prototype and then discusses the resulting generic issues and questions in the context of automated and robot approaches to physiotherapy as a whole.