Robotic rehab could help stroke patients achieve increased mobility

Researchers have proved successfully that robot-assisted therapy can help stroke patients to achieve increased mobility.

A new study by the ETH research team of Robert Riener, Professor in the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab, raises fresh hope.

The researchers compared the progress of patients with arm paresis in two different forms of therapy: firstly conventional therapy in which patients underwent classical training with a physiotherapist or occupational therapist, and secondly therapy in which a robot aided arm movements during training.

Their study showed that the robot-assisted therapy leads on average to slightly better results than the conventional therapy.

The robot also enables playful training of activities of daily living (ADLs) via a computer simulation displayed on a screen. For instance, patients can take their time to practice pouring water from a jug into a glass without actually spilling anything.

Half of the 77 test persons were given the conventional and the other half the robot-assisted therapy. They each had three therapy sessions a week over eight weeks.

Before, during and after this period an independent person regularly assessed the arm mobility of the test persons using various, established scoring systems (the primary end point was the Fugl-Meyer test) without knowing which form of therapy they had received.

Furthermore, the researchers limited the selection of test persons to patients who had suffered a stroke more than six months previously in order to rule out any falsification of the results by spontaneous healing.

Comparison revealed that the robotic therapy produced better results in terms of sensory-motor function, but conventional therapy in terms of building strength.