Bioelectronic Medicine and the Dawn of Robotic Training to Improve Motor Outcome in Chronic Stroke

Abstract

Engineers and clinicians have cooperated to produce and test new classes of bioelectronics that have altered motor impairment that occurs after stroke. The rationale that increased intensity of training alters outcome derives from past clinical and preclinical work. Now several studies have demonstrated that interactive robotic devices are a potent tool for the therapist to deliver effortlessly, reproducible high intensity movement training. These robots are safe and can provide a platform so that recovery might be influenced by a combination of noninvasive novel treatment programs. Also, these robotic devices provide a continuous objective history of movement parameters that will open the horizon for their use in generating novel movement biomarkers to understand, predict and measure the influence of new treatments on motor outcome after neurological injury.