Robots in the future will be able to help human beings in a large number of ways. One of these will be to help stroke patients with their physical therapy. In experimental research scientists assigned 10 stroke patients to robot-assisted therapy, and 10 to a more traditional physical therapy program that included occupational therapy techniques.
The control group did all the regular physical therapy that is applicable today without the help of any robotic interference. Patients in each of the groups had sessions lasting between 90 to 105 minutes a day. These sessions were carried out five days a week for a period of four consecutive weeks.
The research group was working with the Bi-Manu-Track robotic arm trainer. The trainer made the patients do repetitive bilateral arm movements. The robotic device was programmed to encourage patients to be more active with their movements in the side of the body that was weakened by the stroke.
At the end of the designated experiment period it was found that the group of patients who were assigned robot assisted therapy were in better condition that the control group which received just the traditional therapy.
Keh-chung Lin, Yu-wei Hsieh, Wan-wen Liao - National Taiwan University, Ching-yi Wu - Chang Gung University, and Wan-ying Chang, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Hospital were the authors of the study which was based on the above experiment and was recorded in the August 10th edition of Clinical Rehabilitation.
"In this study of rehabilitation approaches for patients with mild-to-moderate upper limb impairment six months after a stroke, we found significantly greater benefits of robot-assisted therapy compared with the active control group on the amount and quality of functional arm activity for the hemiplegic hand in the living environment," said Keh-chung Lin. "Moreover, robot-assisted therapy had superior benefits on improving bimanual arm activity," he added.