A clinical jaw movement training robot for lateral movement training

This paper describes a jaw movement training robot system implementing a 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel mechanism, and its application for lateral movement training. Temporomandibular joints (TMJ) problem is a disorder, whereby patients are not able to open their mouths nor move their jaws easily because of the problems with the mandibular joints, mastication muscles, and other organs concerning food chewing. Conventional therapy has been done with simple mouth opening apparatuses based on a doctor's technique through their own experiences, while this is still common. The authors have developed and improved a jaw movement training robot system, which provides not only jaw open and close training but also jaw lateral movement training. This system consists of a 6-DOF slave manipulator as a patient working manipulator and a 3-DOF master manipulator as a doctor commanding manipulator.