BackgroundSelecting and maintaining an engaging and challenging training difficulty level in robot-assisted stroke rehabilitation remains an open challenge. Despite the ability of robotic systems to provide objective and accurate measures of function and performance, the selection and adaptation of exercise difficulty levels is typically left to the experience of the supervising therapist.MethodsWe introduce a patient-tailored and adaptive robot-assisted therapy concept to optimally challenge patients from the very first session and throughout therapy progress. The concept is evaluated within a four-week pilot study in six subacute stroke patients performing robot-assisted rehabilitation of hand function. Robotic assessments of both motor and sensory impairments of hand function conducted prior to the therapy are used to adjust exercise parameters and customize difficulty levels. During therapy progression, an automated routine adapts difficulty levels from session to session to maintain patients’ performance around a target level of 70%, to optimally balance motivation and challenge.ResultsRobotic assessments suggested large differences in patients’ sensorimotor abilities that are not captured by clinical assessments. Exercise customization based on these assessments resulted in an average initial exercise performance around 70% (62% ± 20%, mean ± std), which was maintained throughout the course of the therapy (64% ± 21%). Patients showed reduction in both motor and sensory impairments compared to baseline as measured by clinical and robotic assessments. The progress in difficulty levels correlated with improvements in a clinical impairment scale (Fugl-Meyer Assessment) (r s = 0.70), suggesting that the proposed therapy was effective at reducing sensorimotor impairment.ConclusionsInitial robotic assessments combined with progressive difficulty adaptation have the potential to automatically tailor robot-assisted rehabilitation to the individual patient. This results in optimal challenge and engagement of the patient, may facilitate sensorimotor recovery after neurological injury, and has implications for unsupervised robot-assisted therapy in the clinic and home environment.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02096445Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1743-0003-11-154) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Hand function is often impaired after stroke, strongly affecting the ability to perform daily activities. Upper limb robotic devices have been developed to complement rehabilitation therapy offered to persons who suffered a stroke, but they rarely focus on the training of hand sensorimotor function. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate whether robot-assisted therapy of hand function following a neurocognitive approach (i.e., combining motor training with somatosensory and cognitive tasks) produces an equivalent decrease in upper limb motor impairment compared to dose-matched conventional neurocognitive therapy, when embedded in the rehabilitation program of inpatients in the subacute stage after stroke. Methods: A parallel-group, randomized controlled trial was conducted on subjects with subacute stroke receiving either conventional or robot-assisted neurocognitive hand therapy using a haptic device. Therapy was provided for 15, 45-min sessions over four weeks, nested within the standard therapy program. Primary outcome was the change from baseline in the upper extremity part of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA-UE) after the intervention, which was compared between groups using equivalence testing. Secondary outcome measures included upper limb motor, sensory and cognitive assessments, delivered therapy dose, as well as questionnaires on user technology acceptance. Results: Thirty-three participants with stroke were enrolled. 14 subjects in the robot-assisted and 13 subjects in the conventional therapy group completed the study. At the end of intervention, week 8 and week 32, the robotassisted/conventional therapy group improved by 7.14/6.85, 7.79/7.31, and 8.64/8.08 points on the FMA-UE, respectively, establishing that motor recovery in the robot-assisted group is non-inferior to that in the control group.

Background: Hand function is often impaired after stroke, strongly affecting the ability to perform daily activities. Upper limb robotic devices have been developed to complement rehabilitation therapy offered to persons who suffered a stroke, but they rarely focus on the training of hand sensorimotor function. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate whether robot-assisted therapy of hand function following a neurocognitive approach (i.e., combining motor training with somatosensory and cognitive tasks) produces an equivalent decrease in upper limb motor impairment compared to dose-matched conventional neurocognitive therapy, when embedded in the rehabilitation program of inpatients in the subacute stage after stroke. Methods: A parallel-group, randomized controlled trial was conducted on subjects with subacute stroke receiving either conventional or robot-assisted neurocognitive hand therapy using a haptic device. Therapy was provided for 15, 45-minute sessions over four weeks, nested within the standard therapy program. Primary outcome was the change from baseline in the upper extremity part of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA-UE) after the intervention, which was compared between groups using equivalence testing. Secondary outcome measures included upper limb motor, sensory and cognitive assessments, delivered therapy dose, as well as questionnaires on user technology acceptance. Results: 33 participants with stroke were enrolled. 14 subjects in the robot-assisted and 13 subjects in the conventional therapy group completed the study. At the end of intervention, week 8 and week 32, the robot-assisted/conventional therapy group improved by 7.14/6.85, 7.79/7.31, and 8.64/8.08 points on the FMA-UE, respectively, establishing that motor recovery in the robot-assisted group is non-inferior to that in the control group. Conclusions: Neurocognitive robot-assisted therapy of hand function allows for a non-inferior motor recovery compared to conventional dose-matched neurocognitive therapy when performed during inpatient rehabilitation in the subacute stage. This allows the early familiarization of subjects with stroke to the use of such technologies, as a first step towards minimal therapist supervision in the clinic, or directly at home after hospital discharge, to help increase the dose of hand therapy for persons with stroke. Trial registration: EUDAMED database (CIV-13-02-009921), clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02096445). Registered 26 March 2014 – Retrospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02096445

An increased incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) amongst soccer players in Italy has recently been reported. A case-control study (300 cases and 300 matched controls) was conducted to explore the association between ALS and physical/sports activities, with specific reference to trauma-related risk. Neither the practice of competitive sports nor sports-related traumas were found to be associated with an increased risk of ALS. The practice of physical activities or sports is not per se a risk factor for ALS. Our results exclude sports-related microtraumas as etiopathogenic factors in the natural history of ALS.

Neurocognitive therapy, according to the Perfetti method, proposes exercises that challenge motor, sensory as well as cognitive functions of neurologically impaired patients. At the level of the hand, neurocognitive exercises typically involve haptic exploration and interaction with objects of various shapes and mechanical properties. Haptic devices are thus an ideal support to provide neurocognitive exercises under well-controlled and reproducible conditions, and to objectively assess patient performance. Here we present three neurocognitive robot-assisted exercises which were implemented on the ReHapticKnob, a high-fidelity two-degrees-of-freedom hand rehabilitation robot. The exercises were evaluated for feasibility and acceptance in a pilot study on five patients suffering from different neurological disorders. Results showed that all patients were able to take part in the neurocognitive robot-assisted therapy, and that the proposed therapy was well accepted by patients, as assessed through subjective questionnaires. Force/torque and position measurements provided insights on the motor strategy employed by the patients during the exploration of virtual object properties, and served as objective assessment of task performance. The fusion of the neurocognitive therapy concept with robot-assisted rehabilitation enriches therapeutic approaches through the focus on haptics, and could provide novel insights on sensorimotor impairment and recovery.