Upper Limb Home-Based Robotic Rehabilitation During COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak requires rapid reshaping of rehabilitation services to include patients recovering from severe COVID-19 with post-intensive care syndromes, which results in physical deconditioning and cognitive impairments, patients with comorbid conditions, and other patients requiring physical therapy during the outbreak with no or limited access to hospital and rehabilitation centers. Considering the access barriers to quality rehabilitation settings and services imposed by social distancing and stay-at-home orders, these patients can be benefited from providing access to affordable and good quality care through home-based rehabilitation. The success of such treatment will depend highly on the intensity of the therapy and effort invested by the patient. Monitoring patients' compliance and designing a home-based rehabilitation that can mentally engage them are the critical elements in home-based therapy's success. Hence, we study the state-of-the-art telerehabilitation frameworks and robotic devices, and comment about a hybrid model that can use existing telerehabilitation framework and home-based robotic devices for treatment and simultaneously assess patient's progress remotely. Second, we comment on the patients' social support and engagement, which is critical for the success of telerehabilitation service. As the therapists are not physically present to guide the patients, we also discuss the adaptability requirement of home-based telerehabilitation. Finally, we suggest that the reformed rehabilitation services should consider both home-based solutions for enhancing the activities of daily living and an on-demand ambulatory rehabilitation unit for extensive training where we can monitor both cognitive and motor performance of the patients remotely.

Unbundling the significance of cognitive robots and drones deployed to tackle COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid review to unpack emerging opportunities to improve healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa

“… [9] Drone Disinfecting contaminated objects and surfaces, broadcasting, surveillance and delivering essential products. [26] Robotics Rehabilitation [27] Drone COVID-19 screening and detection [28] Drone Contactless COVID-19 test distribution [29] Robotics Screening and evaluation of COVID-19 infections [30] Drone COVID-19 sanitization, thermal imaging [31] Robotics Surveillance, delivery, screening and prevention [32] Drone Crowd dispersal, infection monitoring, facial recognition, and logistical roles [33] Robotics Rehabilitation [34] Drone Delivery of essential products to remote areas and improving situational awareness [35] Robotics Urological cancer care during the COVID-19 crisis [36] Drone Disinfecting surfaces [37] Drone Delivery of medications and other healthcare items in COVID-19 hotspots [38] Robotics Improve testing capacity [17] Drone Medical logistics [39] Drone Dispense medicines to the COVID-19 patients [40] Robots Monitoring human temperature and people in public places [41] Drone Monitoring social distancing, disinfections and delivery of goods and medical supplies [42] Roboti...…”

“…However, due to increased hospitalization which subsequently overwhelmed healthcare systems and increased health workers’ workload, therapists could not have sufficient time to monitor the patients' progress online. To alleviate this, [26] developed an upper limb home-based robotic rehabilitation to reduce access barriers to quality rehabilitation services imposed by increased hospitalization, social distancing, stay-at-home, temporary closure of rehabilitation centers [66] and other COVID-19-related restrictions. Social distancing monitoring …”

Surgical treatment for fragility hip fractures during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lower short-term postoperative functional outcome and a higher complication rate compared to the pre-pandemic period

“…Robots can operate passively (patient-driven), actively (robot-driven), or interactively (resist the forces applied by patients) with patients [ 46 ]. Some robots have been developed specifically for home-based settings and have been successfully used to rehabilitate patients suffering from upper and/or lower extremity dysfunction [ 47 ]. By integrating robots into the telehealth patient care strategy, patients can perform robotic-assisted exercises while being remotely assessed and supervised by a therapist via an online platform.…”

Use of noninvasive brain stimulation and neurorehabilitation devices to enhance poststroke recovery: review of the current evidence and pitfalls

“…For example, one study reported the effectiveness of a combination of TR and affordable robotic devices for home-based upper limb rehabilitation. 29 Furthermore, the addition of robotic and VR training to usual care may lead to greater improvements in the early poststroke period relative to usual care alone.…”