**4. Conclusions**

This Chapter showed some innovative applications of Shape Memory Alloys requiring deep understanding of the interaction of the material characteristics with the complex constraints imposed by the human body. In particular, it was explained how the design plan should be laid considering the many aspects connected to the state of the target patient, and the technical requirements should be chosen to meet very well identified needs. The field of Medical Rehabilitation is an interesting domain for exploiting the functional properties of NiTi-based alloys in making new lightweight and portable actuators. The Neuroscience applications introduced in this Chapter, on the other hand, albeit representing a niche sector *per se*, both make the most of the typical design techniques employed for rehabilitation devices, and provide a development ground for interesting industrial actuators with amagnetic characteristics. It is hoped that the SMA-based design strategies presented here will be of inspiration to engineers interested in utilising shape memory actuation for biomedical, robotic, aerospace or automotive applications with tight and mandatory external constraints where compactness, light weight or wearability are desired features of the device.
