Source: Haohan Zhang and Sunil K. Agrawal/Columbia EngineeringEngineers at New York’s Columbia University designed a robotic neck brace to assist patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which holds their head and offers support during a range of motion.

Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a neurodegenerative disease with no known cure that presents with progressive loss of muscle function, eventually leading to limb paralysis and respiratory failure. One distinct feature of the disease is the patient’s inability to hold their head up due to declining muscle strength. The patient’s head generally settles into a chin-on-chest posture, a configuration that results in impaired speech, swallowing and breathing. Current, static neck braces available to ALS patients tend to become uncomfortable and ineffective as the disease progresses.

The robotic neck brace is outfitted with sensors and actuators that adjust the wearer’s head posture. The brace reportedly restores approximately 70% of the human head’s active range of motion. It also serves as a diagnostic tool for impaired neck and head motion by measuring motion using the sensors on the neck brace and surface electromyography (EMG) of the neck muscles.

According to the research team, the neck brace has the potential for improving the patient’s quality of life. The team of engineers and neurologists who devised the neck brace were led by Sunwil Agrawal, a professor of mechanical engineering and of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at the university.

In addition to assisting patients with ALS, Agrawal suggests that the brace might also assist those in physical rehabilitation with whiplash neck injuries from car accidents, or to assist those suffering with neurological diseases like cerebral palsy.

"In the next phase of our research, we will characterize how active assistance from the neck brace will impact ALS subjects with severe head drop to perform activities of daily life," said Agrawal. "For example, they can use their eyes as a joystick to move the head-neck to look at loved ones or objects around them."

The study is published in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology.

The accompanying video appears courtesy of Columbia Engineering.