With the continuous promotion of multiple policies, rehabilitation robots are nurturing a huge blue ocean market

As we enter the era of negative population growth, the problem of population aging will become more and more prominent. Therefore, in the fields of medical care, health and elderly care, the demand for rehabilitation medical robots will continue to grow. In the future, rehabilitation robots may even replace and assist the functions of rehabilitation therapists, giving birth to a huge blue ocean market.

Rehabilitation robots rank second in the market share of overall medical robots, second only to surgical robots. They are a high-end rehabilitation medical technology developed in recent years.

Rehabilitation robots can be divided into two types: auxiliary and therapeutic. Among them, auxiliary rehabilitation robots are mainly used to help patients, the elderly, and the disabled better adapt to daily life and work, and partially compensate for their weakened functions, while therapeutic rehabilitation robots are mainly used to restore some of the patient's functions.

Judging from the current clinical effects, rehabilitation robots can comprehensively reduce the workload of rehabilitation therapists and improve treatment efficiency and accuracy. Relying on a series of intelligent technologies, rehabilitation robots can also promote patients' active participation, objectively evaluate the intensity, time and effect of rehabilitation training, and make rehabilitation treatment more systematic and standardized.

In general, a large number of disabled people, mentally disabled patients, patients with neurological diseases and other rehabilitation populations will be the key service targets of rehabilitation robots in the future. With the continuous emergence of new technologies and new directions such as artificial intelligence and 5G, rehabilitation robots have brought disruptive innovation to the rehabilitation medical industry, generated important value, and will further promote the medical field towards intelligence and achieve win-win cooperation in multiple fields.

The "Robot+" Application Action Implementation Plan issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 17 other departments not long ago directly pointed out the need to accelerate the application of robots in the fields of medical health and elderly care, and actively promote the application and verification of elderly care robots and other elderly care service scenarios.

At the same time, relevant experimental bases in the elderly care field are encouraged to use robot applications as an important part of experimental demonstrations, develop and promote new technologies, products and new models for the elderly. Research and formulate application standards and specifications for robot technology to assist the elderly and the disabled, promote the integration of robots into different scenarios and key areas of elderly care services, and improve the level of intelligence in elderly care services.

The previously released "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Robot Industry" and "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Aging Industry and the Elderly Care Service System" also pointed out that in response to the needs of medical health, elderly care and disability assistance, the focus is on promoting the development and application of service robots , accelerating the integrated application of new technologies in health-promoting rehabilitation assistive devices, and developing rehabilitation assistive devices such as exoskeleton rehabilitation training.

Compared with developed Western countries, my country's rehabilitation robot industry started relatively late and has only begun to rise gradually since 2017. After more than five years of development, my country's rehabilitation robots have been widely used in rehabilitation care, prostheses and rehabilitation treatment. Data show that the annual compound growth rate of my country's rehabilitation robot industry has reached 57.5% in the past five years.

In the long run, rehabilitation robots are an important driving force to effectively fill the gap between medical supply and demand and comprehensively promote the digitalization and upgrading of the medical rehabilitation industry. With the accelerating aging of the population in China and the increasing number of patients with chronic diseases, the huge demand for rehabilitation medical services and rehabilitation medical equipment is driving the rapid development of the local rehabilitation robot industry.

Data shows that from 2016 to 2020, the market size of China's rehabilitation industry increased from 57.5 billion yuan to 122 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 20.69%. The market size of rehabilitation medical devices alone reached 38 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 21.39% in five years. According to analysis by industry authorities, the market size of rehabilitation medical devices in China is expected to reach 81 billion yuan by 2025.