Have you met my father? I mean... have you met my therapist?!

If you are a CARISian, I think you are to some extent familiar with the pitch of my thesis. I am working on rehabilitation robots and I can count quite a few advantages rehab. robots have over human therapists. However, the fact that a robot lacks the ability to "love" and "respond" to patient's physical and emotional state, makes patients to lean toward human therapists. After all, robots are machines made out of cold metal!

In the CARIS lab, we advocate the idea of independent (from human therapist) therapy robots. It is vital that such robots be able to plan a therapy session based on patient's performance and learning, while being responsive to the patient's feelings and motivation. To build toward our vision, I am currently exploring the use of patient's physiological signals to assess motivation in the context of robotic stroke rehabilitation.

Contrary to our view in the CARIS lab, there are research groups that think a robot shall be used only to leverage a therapist's skills. A therapist's role can not be reduced or eliminated as nothing can replace that benovelont smile that therapists give to their patients upon completion of a task.

You may think that these two schools of thought are sufficient to categorize everyone interested in motor rehabilitation machines. That was the case for me up to yesterday morning, when through scrolling in BBC's website I found the third group; fathers. You didn't expect this, eh!

Jorge Cardile, a car mechanic living outside Buenos Aires, did not gave up hope on his son, Ivo, when doctors told his son will never walk. Ivo was born with brain damage that limited his ability to use his limbs. Hope and love joined hands and helped Jorge to build a rehab walker for his son in a month, a machine that helped little Ivo to learn walking. Jorge has developed four prototypes of this machine, making the design better by opening doors of his house to other kids with motor deficits to train with the machines. He believes the reason these kids are improving so fast is due to the fact that they are having fun practicing with this device (motivation...).

You can see BBC's Liliet Heredero reporting this story here.