Robotic Therapy To Help Patients After Stroke

Robotics has found application in a wide variety of fields. With the#-Link-Snipped-#, the humanoid figure and #-Link-Snipped-# it has become even more useful.

One such application is in the field of therapy of patients who have just had a stroke. The research was presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2011 by Kayoko Takahashi, Sc.D., O.T.R who is the lead author of the study and is a clinician and research associate in the Department of Occupational Therapy in Kitasato University East Hospital in Kanagawa, Japan. The study states that robot therapy can be used along with the normal ongoing therapy on the patients after stroke. These robots manipulate paralyzed arms along with the standard therapy. Kayoko Takahashi said, “Combining robotic exercise with regular rehabilitation may be the key to successful intervention.” With robots keeping an eye on the repetitive exercises of the patients, the doctors can reserve their attention to help the patients mentally and get on with a normal daily life again.

The recent study constituted involving 60 stroke survivors with paralysis on one side of the body called as hemiplegia. These patients were treated with standard rehabilitation therapy at different rehabilitation centers in Japan. Half of the total patients were subjected to robot therapy for daily sessions of 40 minutes while the other half were treated with the standard self training program which included stretches and passive-to-active exercises of their affected arm. In the robotic therapy the patient’s forearm is moved in multiple directions which are based on pre-programmed exercise movements. Robots in one of the exercises called the “forward reach” help the patients to extend their arms forward as if reaching for something. The result showed that patients who went through robotic therapy improved better than the others.

The improvement was shown in two measures of upper extremity function: the Fugl-Meyer flexor synergy score and the Fugl-Meyer shoulder/elbow/forearm score. The Fugl-Meyer flexor synergy score is a scale of 0 to 12 which measures the voluntary arm movement reflecting the recovery as the scale displays higher numbers and the Fugl-Meyer shoulder/elbow/forearm score is a scale of 0 to 36 measuring the motor function in the shoulder, elbow and forearm, the higher the scale the better is the recovery. Takahashi also said, “With a recent trend in helping patients function with one arm, many post-stroke patients have given up hope of recovery of their affected arms. Participating in such robotic exercise is therefore, expected to give patients insights about their future ability and a more positive image regarding their affected arm, increasing their self-efficacy and motivation toward rehabilitation."

Indeed this will prove to be a boon to those who have given up hope to ever be able to use their stroke affected limb. However, Takahashi states that further research using larger groups of patients is necessary to know the feasibility of the therapy.

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