Rehabilitative and Assistive Robotics Research in Italy:The Fit4Medical Robotics Initiative

Rehabilitative and assistive robots primarily aim to provide personal assistance with daily tasks and offer rehabilitative or pre-habilitation treatments to individuals at risk of frailty. Their main long-term goal is to enhance the quality of life and the quality of care perceived by citizens. These robots have the potential to assist individuals from childhood through to old age. Additionally, they support healthcare practitioners by monitoring people' conditions, thus facilitating and enhancing clinical assessments and rehabilitative interventions. This capability arises from the unique combination of features offered by robots: they are equipped with sensors and computational reasoning to understand and interpret environmental cues or people' intentions, and they have physical bodies to perform actions based on this reasoning. In recent years, research has been conducted in the fields of biomedical engineering, mechanics, control, materials, ethics, and law, as well as involving clinical and business experts, to provide evidence in the areas of rehabilitative robotics, assistive robotics, and clinical assessment. In this context, this workshop aims to foster discussion among robotics' developers, clinical experimenters and experts in the field of ethics and impact assessment starting from the experience of the Fit4Medical Robotics project. Its primary purpose is to discuss the lessons learned from the fields as well as open challenges and future directions of research, deployment, and widespread utilization of these technologies. Particular emphasis will be placed on discussing the state-of-the-art evidence of effectiveness and the need/significance of large-scale clinical trials, which will play a pivotal role in shaping the course of future investigations. The WS is organized to cover 3 aspects: rehabilitative robotics, socially assistive robotics and technology related to the assessment.