ROBOT-ASSISTED THERAPY IN UPPER EXTREMITY HEMIPARESIS: OVERVIEW OF AN EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH

Evidence-based approach is not a protocol so this is still useless. Why are you even doing stroke research if you don't actually help survivors?  Your mentors and senior researchers should be fired for not setting out correct goals for your research.

ROBOT-ASSISTED THERAPY IN UPPER EXTREMITY HEMIPARESIS:OVERVIEW OF AN EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH

Anne-Gaëlle Grosmaire¹, Christophe Duret^{1, 2*} and Hermano I. Krebs^{3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}

• ¹Centre de Rééducation Fonctionnelle Les Trois Soleils, France
• ²Centre Hospitalier Sud Francilien, France
• ³Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
• ⁴Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, United States
• ⁵Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Fujita Health University, Japan
• ⁶Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
• ⁷Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Japan
• ⁸School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, United Kingdom

Robot-mediated therapy is an innovative form of rehabilitation that enables highly repetitive, intensive, adaptive, and quantifiable physical training. It has been increasingly used to restore loss of motor function, mainly in stroke survivors suffering from an upper limb paresis. Multiple studies collated in a growing number of review articles showed the positive effects on motor impairment, less clearly on functional limitations. After describing the current status of robotic therapy after upper limb paresis due to stroke, this overview addresses basic principles related to robotic therapy applied to upper limb paresis. We demonstrate how this innovation is an evidence-based approach in that it meets both the improved clinical and more fundamental knowledge-base about regaining effective motor function after stroke and the need of more objective, flexible and controlled therapeutic paradigms.

Keywords: hemiparesis, rehabilitation robotics, robot-assisted therapy, Upper Extremity, Stroke

Received: 26 Nov 2018; Accepted: 04 Apr 2019.

Edited by:
Bruce H. Dobkin, University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Reviewed by:
Bernhard Sehm, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
Erin Godecke, Edith Cowan University, Australia