ISRAEL: Israeli-developed human exoskeleton suit enables paralaysed people to walk

Record ID: 396406

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli-developed human exoskeleton suit enables paralaysed people to walk
  • Date: 30th August 2008
  • Summary: (L!1) HAIFA, ISRAEL (AUGUST 18, 2008) (REUTERS) LEGS OF PARALYSED MAN, RADI KAIOF, IN 'REWALK' DEVICE TAKING ONE STEP DOWN A STAIRCASE KAIOF KAIOF PRESSING BUTTON IN 'REWALK' REMOTE CONTROL VARIOUS OF KAIOF WALKING STREET USING 'REWALK'
  • Embargoed: 14th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Health,Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVAEFNAKZ41IXEN1R436ZUKYJZI9
  • Story Text: ReWalk, a remote-controlled suit developed by an Israeli company, enables paralysed people to walk.
    Paralysed for the past 20 years, Radi Kaiof began to walk down a street in Israel with a dim mechanical hum.
    That was the sound of an electronic exoskeleton, developed by a small Israeli high-tech company, moving the 41-year-old Kaiof's legs for him and propelling him forward -- with a proud expression on his face.
    The device, called ReWalk, is the brain child of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies.
    Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, ReWalk helps paraplegics -- people paralysed below the waist -- to stand, walk and climb stairs.
    But for Goffer, the device has a much more important impact on the user.

    "The main benefit of the device is dignity - the self esteem of the person. People are not so aware but being a grownup in height of a child and your head is always stuck in... not so nice to say but in the bottoms of people in elevators and crowded places, not nice. So we shift the person, the moment the person is being shifted from a wheel chair user status to crutch user status it's... it's a whole world, it's a real revolution actually,"
    Goffer told Reuters at his company's offices in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
    Goffer himself was paralysed in an accident in 1997, but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms.
    The product, slated for commercial sales in 2010, is not cheap. The company said it will cost as much as the more sophisticated wheelchairs on the market, which sell for about 20,000 U.S. dollars (USD).
    The system consists of motorised leg supports, body sensors and a backpack containing a computerised control box and rechargeable batteries. It also requires crutches to help with balance, Oren Tamari, COO and R&D Manager of Argo Medical Technologies explained as Kaiof strapped himself into the ReWalk suit.
    The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band -- stand, sit, walk, descend or climb -- and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion.
    Doctors say that physically, the body works differently when upright and it can challenge different muscles and allow full expansion of the lungs when a person is standing up.
    Goffer said his aim was not only to ease the lives of those strapped to wheelchairs but to allow them to have 'normal' life.

    "I wasn't aiming for an assisting device. I was.. something very practical, from morning to night, walking, climbing stairs, climbing as well as descending stairs, slopes, and ... what else a normal person does? I mean normal, major movements of a normal person," he said.
    For Radi Kaiof, who has not risen from his wheelchair for the past 20 years, the ReWalk is life-changing.

    "For me standing up and walking... I have never dreamed about it.
    I've been wounded for 20 years and I have never dreamed I'll be able to walk," he said.
    The ReWalk is now in clinical trials in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Centre, and Goffer said it will soon be used in trials at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Pennsylvania.
    Competing technologies use electrical stimulation to restore function to injured muscle, but Tamari said they will not offer practical alternatives to wheelchairs in the foreseeable future.
    Other "robot suits", like those being developed by the U.S.
    military or the HAL robot of Japan's University of Tsukuba, are not suitable for paralysed people, he said.
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