Clinical training with mouth opening and closing training robot WY-3

Describes the development of a mouth-opening and -closing training robot WY-3 (Waseda Yamanashi-3) that has been designed and developed by combining oral-maxillofacial surgery and robotics. Mouth-opening training is useful for the rehabilitation of patients who have problems opening and closing their mouths. Conventional mouth-opening apparatus (such as wooden screws, bite blocks and clothespins type apparatus) only increase mouth-opening distance and do not have actuators, sensors, and/or control systems. Moreover, during therapy the quantitative force data is unknown in spite of its importance for the standardization of mouth-opening and -closing training. The mouth-opening and -closing training robot WY-3 consists of mechanical, actuation, sensor, and control systems. As a result of therapy using WY-3, the mouth-opening distance increased from 36 to 41 mm