MOTION

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Project Budget	ERDF amount	Start Date	End Date
€7 412 176	€4 445 719	03/01/2019	31/03/2023

MOTION – Mechanised Orthosis for Children with Neurological Disorders is a three year project involving 15 cross border partners. MOTION aims to develop robotic assistive technology - a wearable, lower limb 'exoskeleton' - to help children with cerebral palsy (CP) and other neurological conditions stand and walk as part of their rehabilitation therapy. It is part of the Interreg 2Seas Programme.

Background to the project

The project involves partners from the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

According to data collected from 14 European centres in the Surveillance of Cerebral Palsy common database (Cans, 2000), 30% of children with Cerebral Palsy are not able to walk at 5 years of age and 16% of the CP children need assistive devices to walk, while 54% can walk without aids (Beckhung et al., 2008). This means that 46% of the CP children might benefit from innovative technology like lower limb exoskeletons to promote walking. CP occurs at different prevalence rates, according to statistics, from 1.4 to 3.0 per 1000 live births (Johnson, 2002). Within the 2 Seas region there are between 1.970 - 3.940 CP children younger than 10 years (32.643 – 65.285 CP children in Europe) that might be addressed by assistive technology developed in MOTION.

Project objectives

MOTION addresses two challenges:

• Improve the quality of life of children with neurological disorders through advancements in development, validation and adoption of robotic assistive technology.
• Facilitate knowledge and technology transfer from research to industry, healthcare professionals, end users and policy makers by setting up a transregional network.

Project outcomes 

Major outcomes of the MOTION project will be:

• Development and validation of an autonomous lower limb exoskeleton and a powered ankle foot orthosis for children
• Development and validation of a functional, comfortable smart garment that integrates sensing technology to monitor children while wearing the exoskeleton.
• Statistical analysis of physiological and biomechanical measurements for practitioners and the scientific community
• Setting-up a transregional network to transfer technology and related knowledge by linking research with industry, healthcare professionals, end users and policy makers
• Setting-up web-based and face-to-face training packages for healthcare professionals
• A map of assistive technology dedicated to health authorities and SMEs.