News

In the current issue of “at – Aktuelle Technik”, Roger Gassert and Desiree Beck from RESC discuss how the new Major in Rehabilitation and Inclusion in the Health Sciences and Technology curriculum at D-HEST prepares students for interdisciplinary work at the interface of technology, health sciences, rehabilitation and inclusion.

We are excited to be part of the rtFIN2024 in Heidelberg, where we’re gaining exciting insights about the latest neurofeedback research. Lena Salzmann and Manabu Rohr-Fukuma had the pleasure of presenting their work on DBS-based neurofeedback in Parkinson’s disease. Dominik Wyser is happy to showcase the latest developments from optohive. A big thank you to the organziers and fellow researchers for an inspiring event!

Here's to everyone who made CYBATHLON 2024 a success! We're proud of our RELab ETH Zürich team's contributions, from leading disciplines to organizing awards.

Last week, we were delighted to welcome a delegation from Singapore to RELab ETH Zürich, as part of their visit to attend the CYBATHLON event. This gathering provided a fantastic opportunity to discuss our vision for implementing rehabilitation technologies along the continuum of care and to celebrate the unique, impactful collaboration with Singapore through the Future Health Technologies Programme at the Singapore-ETH Centre. A big thank you to the entire delegation for an enriching exchange!

In the context of the GLC building’s recent opening celebrations, we not only had the pleasure to present our work to various visitors from the public, but Roger Gassert and Jessica Gantenbein also got to talk about the RELab tenoexo alongside three other nice projects from D-HEST and D-ITET. Find out how a robotic hand exoskeleton, a lower limb exoskeleton for children a steering-by-leaning wheelchair and a robotic guide dog can be innovative helpers for everyday life!

Last week, we had the honor of exhibiting at the AI for Good Summit in Geneva. This incredible event provided us with a platform to showcase our research and connect with leaders from the AI community. At our booth, we presented ReHandyBot, our portable upper-limb rehabilitation device, and RehabCoach, the smartphone application designed to assist patients with at-home unsupervised ReHandyBot therapy.  

With the end of the semester, also the first edition of our “Assistive Technology Challenge” course, inspired by the yearly HackaHealth hackathons, came to an end! The ATChallenge is a hands-​on, project-​based course introducing students of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST), ETH Zürich to assistive technologies to the principles of user-​centered design and user evaluation, project management, as well as basic engineering tools.

Throughout an intensive one-week design sprint, students from the Bachelor in Human Medicine program at ETH Zurich learned and applied engineering skills to create a hand gripper for an exoskeleton. The week was filled with interactive workshops, insightful presentations, and collaborative group work, all aimed at fostering transdisciplinary skills and innovative problem-solving.

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.