Africa region: Nigeria

The Nigerian healthcare system is plagued by underfunding, under-staffing, and healthcare access inequities, which adversely affect the quality of neurorehabilitative care in the country. Despite the general perception that robots are too expensive and high-tech for developing countries, robot-mediated therapy may actually provide one of the few viable paths toward improving the quality of neurorehabilitation in the country. Initial steps toward local rehabilitation robotics research and development capacity have been taken by the Ife Rehabilitation Robotics Research Group, with two ongoing low-cost robotics research programs to develop devices for hand and arm rehabilitation, respectively. An adapt-and-evolve strategy has allowed incremental innovation toward making robotic devices more suitable for a developing country like Nigeria. This chapter reviews the state of health care in Nigeria from the vantage point of neurorehabilitation and, thereafter, presents an overview of the work of the group. The implications of the group’s findings for the viability of robot-mediated therapy in Nigeria and other developing countries are discussed.