Via supa-cool blog 3Yen, an amazing robotic jacket aimed at giving stroke victims a hand in rehab. A project cariied out at the Kobe Gakuin University in conjunction with Osaka University and Activelink Co., a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in Seika, Kyoto Prefecture.

More about this in the Asahi:

The device-essentially a mesh jacket in form-uses sensors to detect the muscle movements in the patient's healthy arm and wrist, then uses artificial muscles to stimulate that same movement on the damaged side of the body. Researchers hope repeated therapy will bring back the regular functioning of the damaged limb.

"If (the use of) this jacket spreads, it will be possible to provide long-term support for patients at home," said Akio Nakagawa, professor of occupational therapy at . He was part of a robotics research team at the university that worked (...) the team hopes to have the product, first developed in 2004, on the market in spring 2008, selling for about 250,000 yen each.