Quantitative evaluation of upper-limb motor control in robot-aided rehabilitation

Abstract

This paper is focused on the multimodal analysis of patient performance, carried out by means of robotic technology and wearable sensors, and aims at providing quantitative measure of biomechanical and motion planning features of arm motor control following rehabilitation. Upper-limb robotic therapy was administered to 24 community-dwelling persons with chronic stroke. Performance indices on patient motor performance were computed from data recorded with the InMotion2 robotic machine and a magneto-inertial sensor. Motor planning issues were investigated by means of techniques of motion decomposition into submovements. A linear regression analysis was carried out to study correlation with clinical scales. Robotic outcome measures showed a significant improvement of kinematic motor performance; improvement of dynamic components was more significant in resistive motion and highly correlated with MP. The analysis of motion decomposition into submovements showed an important change with recovery of submovement number, amplitude and order, tending to patterns measured in healthy subjects. Preliminary results showed that arm biomechanical functions can be objectively measured by means of the proposed set of performance indices. Correlation with MP is high, while correlation with FM is moderate. Features related to motion planning strategies can be extracted from submovement analysis.

Quantitative assessment based on kinematic measures of functional impairments during upper extremity movements: A review

“…2a and 2b). In a previous review on metrics from the use of robotic systems, Zoilo et al noted that the information provided by each of these measures may not be exclusive, and the names used in their survey may differ from those used in the original and cited papers (Zoilo et al, 2011). In the present review, we highlighted the same difficulty.…”

“…In the study performed by Zoilo, metrics were classified into two groups according to metrics related to biomechanical characteristics and metrics related to movement aspects (Zoilo et al, 2011). Within the review that we present, metrics found in literature analyze different movement characteristics or quality measures, which have been shown in Figs.…”

“…On the other hand, devices for robot-aided neurorehabilitation are increasingly being incorporated into patients' care programs after stroke (Bosecker et al, 2010;Colombo et al, 2008Colombo et al, , 2012Ellis et al, 2008;Zoilo et al, 2011) or spinal cord injury (Zariffa et al, 2012), and these devices can serve as precise and reliable measurement tools that record simultaneously kinematic and kinetic data. Recently, Bosecker et al (2010) and Colombo et al (2008Colombo et al ( , 2012 have provided the first experiences of evaluation metrics based on robot kinematic data for quantifying motor recovery of stroke patients during robot-aided rehabilitation.…”

Trends in rehabilitation robotics

“…The reviews address some relevant topics related with the rehabilitation robotics research field: overview of upper-limb rehabilitation devices, different approaches to neurorobotic and hybrid management of lower limb motor disorders and a review about the assessment of the effectiveness of robot-facilitated neurorehabilitation for relearning motor skills. Moreover, the original papers cover a wide range of relevant topics like: virtual rehabilitation, rehabilitation robotic devices to train activities of daily living, electrical stimulation, assessment of upper-limb motor control in robotaided rehabilitation, new assistance algorithms based on adaptative oscillators, upper-limb rehabilitation devices based on pneumatic technology, bilateral robot-mediated therapy and assistive robotic devices for elderly people and for children with special needs.Classical devices for upper-limb rehabilitation clinical research, like ARMin [8], and many others are revised on Rui Loureiro et al [15]. Tables in this work give a present update of the well-known devices.…”

“…Classical devices for upper-limb rehabilitation clinical research, like ARMin [8], and many others are revised on Rui Loureiro et al [15]. Tables in this work give a present update of the well-known devices.…”