Title: Robot-led Rehabilitative Exercise for People with Parkinson’s Disease

Date: Thursday, October 9th, 2025

Time: 11:00 - 12:30 EST

Location: 

In-person: 2nd floor Conference Room, 57 Executive Park South, Atlanta GA 30324

Virtual: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99614084849

Matthew Lamsey

Robotics PhD Student

Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Committee:

Dr. Madeleine E. Hackney (advisor) – Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology & Georgia Institute of Technology, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Lena Ting (co-advisor) – Georgia Institute of Technology, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Gregory Sawicki – Georgia Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Hyeokhyen Kwon – Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Informatics

Dr. Charles C. Kemp, Hello Robot Inc.

Abstract: 

This proposal presents the design, evaluation, and iterative improvement of a robotic system for personalized rehabilitative exercise for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD), referred to as the Zesty Exercise System for Therapeutic Engagement (ZEST-E). The contributions of this thesis proposal support the following thesis statement: Portable, socially, and physically interactive robots can provide personalized rehabilitative exercise to people with Parkinson’s disease (PWP), increasing PWP’s access to supervised exercise and improving execution quality via closed-loop form assessment and feedback.

The proposed work contains three aims: 1) the preliminary design and evaluation of ZEST-E by people with PD; 2) the evaluation of ZEST-E by exercise specialists (ESs) who work with people with PD; and 3) the design of a robotic exercise form assessment and feedback system to augment ZEST-E in response to feedback from PWP and ESs. I present a novel design of a robotic exercise system comprised of a portable mobile manipulator with a tactile end effector, which leads socially and physically interactive personalized exercise games. By evaluating the system with people with PD and ESs, I present a multifaceted characterization of stakeholders’ technological acceptance of ZEST-E. The final contribution of this thesis is a direct iteration of ZEST-E based on these assessments.