A Novel Approach for Upper Limb Robotic Rehabilitation for Stroke Patients

This paper presents a novel neuro-rehabilitation system for recovery of arm and hand motor functions involved in reaching and grasping. The system provides arm weight support and robotic assistance of the hand closing/opening within specific exercises in virtual reality. A user interface allows the clinicians to perform an easy parametrization of the virtual scenario, customizing the exercises and the robotic assistance to the needs of the patient and encouraging training of the hand with proper recruitment of the residual motor functions. Feasibility of the proposed rehabilitation system was evaluated through an experimental rehabilitation session, conducted by clinicians with 4 healthy participants and 2 stroke patients. All subjects were able to perform the proposed exercises with parameters adapted to their specific motor capabilities. All patients were able to use the proposed system and to accomplishing the rehabilitation tasks following the suggestion of the clinicians. The effectiveness of the proposed neuro-rehabilitation will be evaluated in an imminent prolonged clinical study involving more stroke patients. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.