Vol. 50 - No. 5 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL AND REHABILITATION MEDICINE 579 UEMS ‑ Position Paper New technologies designed to improve functioning: the role of the physical and rehabilitation medicine physician which machines can be classed as robots, but there is general agreement among experts and the public that “robots tend to do some or all of the follow- ing: move around, operate a mechanical limb, sense and manipulate their environment, and exhibit intel- ligent behaviour, especially behaviour which mimics humans or other animals”. 4 We may summarise the situation as follows: robots have actuators and sensors, the action they perform is based on sensed status or environment and there is an intelligent reaction to this status or environ- 1  Member, Professional Practice Committee UEMS Section of PRM Rehabilitation Hospital San Pancrazio – KosGroup Santo, Arco, Trento, Italy 2  Deputy Chairman, Professional Practice Committee UEMS Section of PRM Departamento de Medicina Fisica y Rehabilitación, Facultad de Medicina UCM, Ciudad Universitaria Madrid, Spain 3  Director Unit of Rehabilitation, San Raffaele Pisana, Rome, Italy 4  Member, Professional Practice Committee UEMS Section of PRM Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Albertov 7, Prague, Czech Republic 5  Secretary General, UEMS Section and Board of PRM, Acquired Brain Injury Ward, Folingo Hospital, Foligno, Perugia, Italy 6  Chairman, Professional Practice Committee, UEMS Section of PRM, Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, University Hospital Elias, Bucharest, Romania 7  President, UEMS Section of PRM, School of Medicine, European University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus SPECIAL PAPER EUR J PHYS REHABIL MED 2014;50:579-83 A. GIUSTINI 1 , E. VARELA 2 , M. FRANCESCHINI 3 , J. VOTAVA 4 , M. ZAMPOLINI 5 , M. BERTEANU 6 , N. CHRISTODOULOU 7 T he growth of rehabilitation practice in all its ields, applications and venues, is interacting in- creasingly with the general rise in the potential of technology and its innovative applications. 1 Nevertheless, it should be stressed that the use of machinery has always been a mainstay of re- habilitation practice (Physical and Rehabilita- tion Medicine, involving the whole environment around disabled people), as was the case in the past with physical exercise, physical modalities, and many other activities that employed physical and technological means such as aids, prostheses and orthotics. 2-4 The new possibilities technology offers today sup- port continuous development for these traditional rehabilitation tools and continuous extension of their application in the direction of the better recov- ery of functioning and health for all the disabled. 5-7 On the other hand, the speciic features of the new technological equipment and the methodolo- gies used for evaluation, but mainly for treatment, are interacting actively and profoundly with reha- bilitation practices, very often profoundly modify- ing many previously shared theoretical, clinical and management paradigms. So, the many different applications of technolo- gies in therapeutic interventions are the “core” of the prospects for this Position Paper. Another dificulty arises from the current imper- fect classiication of the types and categories of these devices and apparatus with regard to their variabil- ity and their numerous differences in characteristics, utilisation, aims, etc. Until now there has been no full consensus as to MINERVA MEDICA COPYRIGHT® This document is protected by international copyright laws. No additional reproduction is authorized. It is permitted for personal use to download and save only one file and print only one copy of this Article. It is not permitted to make additional copies (either sporadically or systematically, either printed or electronic) of the Article for any purpose. It is not permitted to distribute the electronic copy of the article through online internet and/or intranet file sharing systems, electronic mailing or any other means which may allow access to the Article. The use of all or any part of the Article for any Commercial Use is not permitted. The creation of derivative works from the Article is not permitted. The production of reprints for personal or commercial use is not permitted. It is not permitted to remove, cover, overlay, obscure, block, or change any copyright notices or terms of use which the Publisher may post on the Article. It is not permitted to frame or use framing techniques to enclose any trademark, logo, or other proprietary information of the Publisher.