Robot-mediated upper limb physiotherapy for patients with spastic hemiparesis: A preliminary study

Abstract

Objective: to investigate the clinical usefulness of the rEharoB therapeutic System, which provides passive robot-mediated physiotherapy for patients with spastic hemiparesis. Design: Controlled, randomized, preliminary study. Patients and methods: thirty patients with hemiparesis as a consequence of upper motor neurone lesion were divided randomly into 2 groups: robotic and control. Subjects from both groups received 30 minutes of Bobath therapy sessions on 20 consecutive work days. members of the robotic group received an additional 30 minutes of robot-mediated therapy on the same days. the clinical status of each patient was assessed before the first session and at the end of the programme. the difference in the scores was statistically evaluated by t-test for dependent variables in case of parametric data and Friedman's test in case of non-parametric data. Results: the majority of the parameters measured improved in both groups, but modified Ashworth score of shoulder adductors and elbow flexors showed a statistically significant change only in the robotic group. Conclusion: the results suggest that it could be useful to supplement traditional physiotherapy with this form of robotmediated therapy. Clinical investigation of a higher number of patients is planned in the near future.

Effects of robot-assisted therapy on stroke rehabilitation in upper limbs: Systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature

“…Six robotic instruments were used in these RCTs: REHAROB [28], T-WREX [29], ARM-Guide [30], MIME [31][32], NeReBot [33], and MIT-Manus [26][27][34][35][36][37]. Most of the studies (and most robots) focused on the restoration of proximal UL function.…”

“…The PEDro scores ranged from 2 to 7. All studies were considered high quality except Fazekas et al [28], which had a PEDro score of 2; as a result of the low PEDro score and also because the statistical information for the "between group comparison" and "point estimates and variability" was not included, this study was excluded from further analysis. In two of the studies, some of the baseline values were not comparable between the groups.…”

Upper-limb robot-assisted therapy in rehabilitation of acute stroke patients: Focused review and results of new randomized controlled trial

“…This finding is confirmed by the two acute-and subacute-phase studies that used robotic training in addition to conventional therapy or in comparison with placebo (one involving the MIT-Manus [33], the other the NeReBot [21]) and revealed that additional robotic treatment in the acute and subacute phases leads to comparatively higher improvements in ADLs [22]. Conversely, at least one study on additional robotic training in the chronic phase reported that gains in ADL measures were not greater in the robotic group with respect to controls [47].…”

A Brief Review on Robotic Exoskeletons for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation to Find the Gap between Research Porotype and Commercial Type

“…Furthermore previous literature advocates that robot-assisted rehabilitation in post-stroke individuals have advantages in terms of clinical and biomechanical measures to regain arm motor function in comparison with conventional treatment [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Indeed performing repetitive movements with the affected limb of the post-stroke patient obtain functional gain thereby an increase of motivation which helps to use arm further [17][18][19][20].…”