Deans' stroke musings: Myoelectrically controlled wrist robot for stroke rehabilitation

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Myoelectrically controlled wrist robot for stroke rehabilitation

For your therapists to know about and see if possible use for you.
http://7thspace.com/headlines/439248/myoelectrically_controlled_wrist_robot_for_stroke_rehabilitation.html
Robot-assisted rehabilitation is an advanced new technology in stroke rehabilitation to provide intensive training. Post-stroke motor recovery depends on active rehabilitation by voluntary participation of patient's paretic motor system as early as possible in order to promote reorganization of brain.

However, voluntary residual motor efforts to the affected limb have not been involved enough in most robot-assisted rehabilitation for patients after stroke. The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of robot-assisted rehabilitation using myoelectric control on upper limb motor recovery.

Methods: In the present study, an exoskeleton-type rehabilitation robotic system was designed to provide voluntarily controlled assisted torque to the affected wrist.

Voluntary intention was involved by using the residual surface electromyography (EMG) from flexor carpi radialis(FCR) and extensor carpi radialis (ECR)on the affected limb to control the mechanical assistance provided by the robotic system during wrist flexion and extension in a 20-session training. The system also applied constant resistant torque to the affected wrist during the training.

Sixteen subjects after stroke had been recruited for evaluating the tracking performance and therapeutical effects of myoelectrically controlled robotic system.

Results: With the myoelectrically-controlled assistive torque, stroke survivors could reach a larger range of motion with a significant decrease in the EMG signal from the agonist muscles. The stroke survivors could be trained in the unreached range with their voluntary residual EMG on the paretic side.

After 20-session rehabilitation training, there was a non-significant increase in the range of motion and a significant decrease in the root mean square error (RMSE) between the actual wrist angle and target angle. Significant improvements also could be found in muscle strength and clinical scales.

Conclusions: These results indicate that robot-aided therapy with voluntary participation of patient's paretic motor system using myoelectric control might have positive effect on upper limb motor recovery.