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The inevitable axis misalignment between human wrist joint and the rehabilitation robot joint may bring undesired reaction force, which may block the acquire of wrist natural range of motion (ROM). To compensate axis misalignment, the introduction of self-alignment mechanism (SAM) to robots is one of the extensively applied method. However, this method may have effects on the biomechanical properties of wrist joint, and the definite effects of SAM on the wrist ROM have been rarely investigated up to date. The assessment of wrist active ROM can provide insight into improvements and effective monitoring during a rehabilitation program. To verify the effects of SAM on the wrist active ROM of flexion/extension, experiments involving 8 healthy subjects were conducted in the cases of SAM locked and SAM unlocked respectively, thus active ROM measured by robot-assisted assessment method. Results show that the mean values of the active ROM has a maximum increase of 21.64º with SAM unlocked compared to that with SAM locked. Test-retest reliability of the proposed assessment method was also analyzed with intraclass correlation coefficient more than 0.79, and standard error of measurement less than 4.17º. These suggest that the application of SAM on the WReD II was feasible and reliable to help acquire larger wrist active ROM.
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