Application of Robot-assisted Upper Limb Rehabilitation for Stroke (review) / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

Stroke would result in upper-limb dysfunction. Robot-assisted upper limb rehabilitation is applied in the rehabilitation training after stroke, mainly for intensive and repetitive specific task-oriented training to improve muscle strength and promote the isolated movement of upper limbs for the hemiplegics. However, it can do less for spasm and activities of daily living. It may be more effective combining with other therapies. Although the robots have the advantages of no fatigue, quantification, individualization and objective evaluation, there are also some disadvantages, such as incomplete training, inability to correct compensatory action and lack of empathy, etc. There is still a lack of high quality clinical research of large samples about robot-assisted upper limb rehabilitation, and frequency and time of the treatment is unclear.