A Robot Goes to Rehab: A Novel Gamified System for Stroke Rehabilitation using a Socially Assistive Robot: Methodology & Feasibility Testing

Abstract

Background: Socially assistive robots (SARs) have been proposed as a tool to help individuals who have had a stroke to perform their exercise during their rehabilitation process. Methods: Here, we describe a robot-based gamified exercise platform, which we developed for long-term post-stroke rehabilitation. The platform uses the humanoid robot Pepper, and also has a computer-based configuration (with no robot). It includes seven gamified sets of exercises, which are based on functional tasks from the everyday life of the patients, such as reaching to a cup, or turning a key in a lock. The platform gives the patients instructions, as well as feedback on their performance, and can track their performance over time. We performed a long-term patient-usability study, where 14 stroke patients exercised with this platform (in either the robot or the computer configuration) over a 5-week period, 3 times per week, for a total of 210 sessions. Results: The stroke patients reported that this rehabilitation platform addressed their arm rehabilitation needs, and they expressed their desire to continue training with the platform even after the study ended. Conclusions: These results are especially encouraging during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the requirement to reduce physical contact and keep a social distance accentuates the need for alternative rehabilitative tools, such as SARs, to enable patients to have an uninterrupted (even if modified) rehabilitation regime. Trial Registration: This trial is registered in the NIH ClinicalTrials.gov database. Registration number NCT03651063, registration date 21.08.2018. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03651063