According to the findings of a research study conducted by the researchers at Taipei Hospital, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Chang Gung University and National Taiwan University, robot-assisted therapy significantly improves the functioning of a stroke-affected arm.
During the study, the researchers conducted comparison study on 20 patients between an active control treatment group and robot-assisted therapy coupled with functional training. They observed that robot-assisted therapy in combination with functional task training assists functional hand use and enhances bimanual arm action.
Robotic rehabilitation significantly improves conventional post-stroke interventions, as robots are custom-programmed to meet the requirements of every patient, thus offering immense and rigorous training continuously without fatigue.
The rehabilitation robots provide sensorimotor feedback through audio and visual feedback in training sessions to assist the motor learning of the patients. Earlier studies reported that the improvements observed during robotic rehabilitation did not have an impact on the patients’ routine lives.
In this study, the researchers emphasized these problems by measuring both stroke-affected arm and non-impaired arm and observing patients at home with the accelerometers that measure amount and intensity of physical activities performed by the patients in routine life conditions. During the study, both groups underwent rigorous training for 90-105 min per sitting for five days in a week for four weeks. Qualified occupational therapists managed the training programs. Further studies will be conducted to optimize the use of robots for the rehabilitation of stroke-affected patients.
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