Study: Socially Assistive Robot Helps Rehab For Stroke Patients - NoCamels

 Didn't your hospital evaluate and get this socially assistive robot from August 2018? Or did they incompetently not even know about it? So you don't have a functioning stroke hospital, do you?

Robots as tools and partners in rehabilitation August 2018 

The latest here:

Study: Socially Assistive Robot Helps Rehab For Stroke Patients

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have found that the use of a socially assistive robot (SAR) improves outcomes in the rehabilitation undergone by patients who have suffered a stroke. 

A clinical trial, conducted at Adi Negev Rehabilitation Center outpatient clinic by Prof. Shelly Levy-Tzedek, Dr. Ronit Feingold-Polak and Oren Barzel, divided 26 participants into three groups. 

One group worked with a SAR in addition to their usual care; one worked with a computer in addition to their usual care; and a third group received usual care with no further intervention. 

The trial included three sessions per week for each participant, with each receiving a total of 15 sessions. 

The researchers found that the participants who received SAR input showed significant improvements that were not evident in the participants in the other two groups.

In fact, BGU says, all of the members of the SAR group displayed improvement that reached or exceeded the gold standard for post-stroke upper-extremity activity.

“This study demonstrates both the feasibility and the clinical benefit of using a SAR for long-term interaction with post-stroke individuals as part of their rehabilitation program,” said Feingold Polak.

“Use of robots could vastly improve rehabilitation outcomes by encouraging people to continue their treatment in what they feel is a non-judgmental setting. Our study found that people enjoyed their interactions with the SAR, which seems to have helped improve their recovery over working with a computer or without any technological assistance,” said Levy-Tzedek.

The findings were recently published in the leading rehabilitation journal IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.