Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center
Rehabilitation Engineering
The Rancho Rehabilitation Engineering department (www.ranchorep.org) is nationally recognized for its applied research contributions to the development of assistive technologies for persons living with disability. Our missions are to create and evaluate new technologies for persons with disabilities and to recruit and train persons to become rehabilitation engineering professionals. The Rehabilitation Engineering is part of Rancho Research Institute (RRI) https://ranchoresearch.org/ and an important component of Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center’s rehabilitation program since the 1960s when major contributions were made to the development of orthoses, skeletal fixation systems and powered wheelchairs, and functional electrical stimulation.
Learn More About our Rehab Engineering Staff.
We develop and evaluate technologies for individuals (children and adults) with orthopedic and neurological disabilities. Currently, we are addressing the needs of persons with a spinal cord injury and stroke; with engineering solutions to preserve shoulder function in manual wheelchair users, the development and evaluation of mobile arm support, wheelchair propulsion, suspension, and seating systems, evaluations of gait training robotic assist devices, orthotic solutions for optimal gait function, and development and evaluation of adapted exercises and virtual reality gaming systems. We closely collaborate with the Pathokinesiology Laboratory in all aspects of development and clinical evaluations.
Our recent major projects include the Rehabilitation Engineering Center (RERC) on Technologies for Children with Orthopedic Disabilities, Rehabilitation Engineering Center (RERC) on Spinal Cord Injury, and Rehabilitation Engineering Center (RERC) on Technologies for Successful Aging with Disability (a collaboration between the University of Southern California and Rancho), and the Southern California Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems; funded by the National Institute on Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the Department of Education.
