ABSTRACT
Rehabilitation of humans with sensory-motor disability requires effective assistive systems that would allow their fast and maximal reintegration into the normal life. The cost-benefit functions that humans with disability likely appreciate and optimize comprise elements, such as (1) the quality of life measured by reintegration into the social and work environments; (2) reliability of the assistive system; (3) energy rate and cost with respect to the one used for accomplishing the same task with alternative methods; (4) disruption of normal activities when employing the assistive system; (5) cosmetics; (6) maintenance; and (7) cost. The same elements are considered, but, in a different order by the developers of the rehabilitation technology, practitioners of physical medicine, and rehabilitation and health-care providers.
