Invited Academic Seminar Series – James Patton

Abstract 

Robotics and displays offer opportunities to distort reality with interventions such as error augmentation, sensory crossover, avatars, and negative viscosity. These techniques lead to training situations that enhance the learning process and can restore movement ability after neural injury. I will trace out clinical studies that have employed such technologies to improve the health and function, as well as share some leading-edge insights that include deceiving the patient, moving software into the hardware, and examining clinical effectiveness. 

Bio:  

James L. Patton received BS mechanical engineering & engineering science from University of Michigan (1989), MS in theoretical mechanics from Michigan State (1993), and PhD biomedical engineering from Northwestern University (1998). He is Richard and Loan Hill Professor of BioMedicalEngineering at the University of Illinois Chicago, and research scientist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. He worked in automotive manufacturing and nuclear medicine before discovering control of human movement. His interests include robotic teaching, controls, haptics, modeling, human-machine interfaces, and technology-facilitated recovery from a brain injury. Patton was vice president of conferences for the IEEE-EMB society, and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and IEEE Transactions Medical Robotics and Bionics.  

Disclosures 

The KineAssist (TM) robotic device (HDT Robotics, Incorporated) will be discussed as part of a research program on an early model. It was used to test a novel research concept on training with a custom attachment made in our labs.  The Burt robotic device (Barrett Technologies, Inc) will be mentioned as one of our latest research studies which our group has developed novel custom software for training to perform a preliminary clinical test. This device was developed with the consulting advice with Patton, who received consulting fees for his time in the past.  

Objectives:  

Participants should gain the ability to Discuss 

1. History and motivation for the field of therapeutic robotics 
2. Barriers and opportunities this field  
3. Critiques of Dr. Patton and others’ approaches to these goals