News

We are proud to announce that our submission, titled “Exploring Neural Biomarkers of Gait”, has received a jury distinction in the SNSF Image Competition! The awarded picture was presented in the category “Women and men of science,” and captures a moment from the gait laboratory within our StimuLOOP project, where we record neural activity in Parkinson’s patients.

Camille Pescatore started her PhD at the Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory in April 2024. Her research is focused on including the brain in neurorehabilitation therapy after stroke, combining wearable, optical neuroimaging with non invasive brain stimulation.

We were pleased and honoured to welcome Prof. David Reinkensmeyer, who visited RELab for a 3-week stay. It was a unique opportunity to exchange on our many common interests in the field of rehabilitation technologies, and to intensely brainstorm on future projects. Thank you David for this stimulating visit!

It was a pleasure to organize this year's medical engineering hackathon! Within one week, medical students of ETH Zurich engineered a gripper for a model exoskeleton using newly acquired knowledge in prototyping, electronics, programming, and CAD. Remarkable concepts were developed and tested in a CYBATHLON-inspired competition.

Frederic Schlicht joined the RELab as lab administrator in January 2024. He manages RELab's administrative tasks and helps employees and students with their administrative needs.

Mathieu Berthet started his Ph.D. at the RELab in cooperation with the Lake Lucerne Institute (LLUI) in November 2023. He is a member of the StimuLOOP project, where his research focuses on personalized gait rehabilitation for patients with stroke or Parkinson's disease. Through the use of real-​time multimodal feedback, he aims to develop novel data-​driven training protocols that will improve gait quality and mobility.

We thank all our fantastic collaborators, partners and friends for supporting us in 2023. We wish you relaxing holidays and a happy and most importantly healthy New Year! Your RELab

After suffering a severe case of Covid-​19, Roger Gassert discovered for himself how important a role rehabilitation plays in recovery. The ETH Professor of Rehabilitation Engineering now plans to waste no time ensuring that patients profit from his developments.

Our video presenting the tenoexo, a fully wearable actuated soft exoskeleton for grasping assistance in everyday activities has been viewed over 100k times on our YouTube channel!

At the Nationaler Zukunftstag last Thursday we had the pleasure to welcome six D-HEST-kids at RELab in our lab at GLC. Besides a first glimpse into the potential of technology in rehabilitation, Lena Salzmann showed them how to use neural activity to control a BCI -toy car, and Jessica Gantenbein introduced them to tenoexo and PEXO, our robotic hand orthoses to support grasp function in adults and children. 

Are you interested in exoskeletons and how they can support users in physically demanding tasks, but are not a specialist in the field? Read the new Auxivo White Paper on "How Exoskeletons Provide Support", which introduces the basic working principles on which all exoskeletons build and beautifully illustrates their effect.

Aileen Naef is a postdoctoral researcher working in combination for the RELab and the Lake Lucerne Institute. Her work is part of the StimuLOOP project which aims to investigate how real-​time feedback during therapy sessions can influence the neurorehabilitation of gait quality in stroke and Parkinson’s patients. More specifically, her work investigates whether personalized real-​time visual and haptic feedback can improve gait quality and mobility after stroke.  

Upcoming AI for Good webinar on “Rehabilitation robotics: Advancing physical therapy for improved health outcomes”, in which Olivier Lambercy will be one of the panelists. The event is organized as part of the Robotics for Good programming track, a series of expert talks that explore the applications of intelligent autonomous systems to advance the UNSDGs.

Congratulations to Tim Unger for winning the Best Poster Award at RehabWeek 2023!

On 26 September, Future Health Technologies (FHT) Programme Director Nicole Wenderoth, Olivier Lambercy and Desiree Beck organised a panel discussion on 'Rehab anywhere – how next-generation technologies can bring healthcare to the community'.

FHT researchers are currently demonstrating their latest research at RehabWeek 2023 in Singapore, the top conference in the field of neurorehabilitation technologies, bringing together experts from academia, clinics, and industry! Pass by our booth (A11&12) to meet our team and try our latest technologies for upper limb assessment and therapy, including the new ReHandyBot from Articares.

On the first day of RehabWeek 2023, FHT researchers Hsiao-ju Cheng, Simone Kager, and Olivier Lambercy hosted an exciting workshop on “Bringing Technology-Assisted Upper Limb Neurorehabilitation From Clinic to Home: An Interdisciplinary Perspective".

Dr. Olivier Lambercy, senior scientist and co-director of the Rehabilitation Engineering Lab, has been appointed as Adjunct Professor at ETH Zurich. Olivier’s research is situated at the intersection of medical technology and neuroscience. He is internationally acclaimed for his interdisciplinary research and has registered five patents. He is also Principal Investigator at the Singapore-​ETH Centre, as part of the “Future Health Technologies” programme.

Anna, Johannes, Nadine and Tim from the RELab and the cereneo foundation attended the Upper Limb Summer School in Leuven that brought together a diverse group of attendees.

We had a lot of fun demonstrating the concept of Neurofeedback within the StimuLOOP stand at Scientifica. At our booth, visitors could actively experience personalized rehabilitation methods, offering hands-on insights into the current rehabilitation research in stroke and Parkinson’s disease.