Training stroke patients with continuous tracking movements: evaluating the improvement of voluntary control.
We report on a pilot study of robot therapy with stroke patients. Patients were requested to track a continuously moving target according to a figure-of-eight. Assistance was provided by an attractive force field, whose magnitude was regulated according to a principle of minimal assistance and a principle of consolidation of the learned memory trace. From the analysis of the assistive forces, we show that subjects improve their degree of voluntary control.
Casadio
M
M
University of Genoa, Dept. of Informatics, Systems, Telecom., Via Opera Pia 13, 16145 Genoa, Italy. maura.casadio@unige.it
Giannoni
P
P
Morasso
P
P
Sanguineti
V
V
Squeri
V
V
Vergaro
E
E
D006801:Humans; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014836:Volition