Design strategies to improve patient motivation during robot-aided rehabilitation

 In the 17 years since this came out our stroke medical 'professionals' still don't understand ONE GODDAMN THING ABOUT SURVIVOR MOTIVATION! You create 100% recovery protocols and your survivor will be motivated to do the millions of reps needed because they are looking forward to 100% recovery. GET THERE! 

The problem is stroke researchers are not motivated to solve stroke. What the fuck is your solution to that failure? We still don't know how to motivate stroke medical 'professionals' to solve stroke to 100% recovery!

 

Design strategies to improve patient motivation during robot-aided rehabilitation

Published: 19 February 2007 Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2007, 4:3 doi:10.1186/1743-0003-4-3 Received: 31 March 2006 Accepted: 19 February 2007 This article is available from: http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/4/1/3

 

Roberto Colombo* 1 , Fabrizio Pisano 2 , Alessandra Mazzone 1 , Carmen Delconte 2 , Silvestro Micera 3 , M Chiara Carrozza 3 , Paolo Dario 3 and Giuseppe Minuco 1 Address: 1 Service of Bioengineering, Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS Via Revislate 13, 28010 Veruno (NO), Italy, 2 Division of Neurology, Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS Via Revislate 13, 28010 Veruno (NO), Italy and 3 ARTS Lab Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna V.le Piaggio 34, 56025 Pontedera (PI), Italy Email: Roberto Colombo* - rcolombo@fsm.it; Fabrizio Pisano - fpisano@fsm.it; Alessandra Mazzone - amazzone@fsm.it; Carmen Delconte - cdelconte@fsm.it; Silvestro Micera - micera@sssup.it; M Chiara Carrozza - carrozza@sssup.it; Paolo Dario - dario@sssup.it; Giuseppe Minuco - gminuco@fsm.it * Corresponding author Abstract  

Background:  

 

Motivation is an important factor in rehabilitation and frequently used as a determinant of rehabilitation outcome. Several factors can influence patient motivation and so improve exercise adherence. This paper presents the design of two robot devices for use in the rehabilitation of upper limb movements, that can motivate patients during the execution of the assigned motor tasks by enhancing the gaming aspects of rehabilitation. In addition, a regular review of the obtained performance can reinforce in patients' minds the importance of exercising and encourage them to continue, so improving their motivation and consequently adherence to the program. In view of this, we also developed an evaluation metric that could characterize the rate of improvement and quantify the changes in the obtained performance.  

Methods:  

 

Two groups (G1, n = 8 and G2, n = 12) of patients with chronic stroke were enrolled in a 3-week rehabilitation program including standard physical therapy (45 min. daily) plus treatment by means of robot devices (40 min., twice daily) respectively for wrist (G1) and elbow-shoulder movements (G2). Both groups were evaluated by means of standard clinical assessment scales and the new robot measured evaluation metric. Patients' motivation was assessed in 9/12 G2 patients by means of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) questionnaire.  

Results:  

 

Both groups reduced their motor deficit and showed a significant improvement in clinical scales and the robot measured parameters. The IMI assessed in G2 patients showed high scores for interest, usefulness and importance subscales and low values for tension and pain subscales.  

Conclusion:  

 

Thanks to the design features of the two robot devices the therapist could easily adapt training to the individual by selecting different difficulty levels of the motor task tailored to each patient's disability. The gaming aspects incorporated in the two rehabilitation robots helped maintain patients' interest high during execution of the assigned tasks by providing feedback on performance. The evaluation metric gave a precise measure of patients' performance and thus provides a tool to help therapists promote patient motivation and hence adherence to the training program.