Bilateral robots for upper-limb stroke rehabilitation: State of the art and future prospects.
Robot-assisted bilateral upper-limb training grows abundantly for stroke rehabilitation in recent years and an increasing number of devices and robots have been developed. This paper aims to provide a systematic overview and evaluation of existing bilateral upper-limb rehabilitation devices and robots based on their mechanisms and clinical-outcomes. Most of the articles studied here were searched from nine online databases and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from year 1993 to 2015. Devices and robots were categorized as end-effectors, exoskeletons and industrial robots. Totally ten end-effectors, one exoskeleton and one industrial robot were evaluated in terms of their mechanical characteristics, degrees of freedom (DOF), supported control modes, clinical applicability and outcomes. Preliminary clinical results of these studies showed that all participants could gain certain improvements in terms of range of motion, strength or physical function after training. Only four studies supported that bilateral training was better than unilateral training. However, most of clinical results cannot definitely verify the effectiveness of mechanisms and clinical protocols used in robotic therapies. To explore the actual value of these robots and devices, further research on ingenious mechanisms, dose-matched clinical protocols and universal evaluation criteria should be conducted in the future.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand; Department of Sport and Exercise Science, The University of Auckland, 261 Morrin Road, Auckland, New Zealand. Electronic address: bshe687@aucklanduni.ac.nz.
Bo
B
Sheng
Department of Sport and Exercise Science, The University of Auckland, 261 Morrin Road, Auckland, New Zealand. Electronic address: yanxin.zhang@auckland.ac.nz.
Yanxin
Y
Zhang
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand. Electronic address: wmen386@aucklanduni.ac.nz.
Wei
W
Meng
School of Mechanical Science & Engineering, Huazhong University Of Science & Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, China. Electronic address: dengchao@hust.edu.cn.
Chao
C
Deng
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand; School of Mechanical Science & Engineering, Huazhong University Of Science & Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, China. Electronic address: s.xie@auckland.ac.nz.
Shengquan
S
Xie
D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D006801:Humans; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000503:physiopathology
Bilateral training; Clinical protocols; Rehabilitation robot; Upper-limb