Hand motion analysis during robot-aided rehabilitation in chronic stroke.

A high percentage of post-stroke patients reports spasticity and no functional use of the upper limb. To adapt the therapy in the most patient-specific manner, it is of paramount importance to objectively assess motor improvement during rehabilitation therapy. In this paper, a quantitative evaluation of the results obtained by using a commercial exoskeletal glove for hand rehabilitation (i.e. Gloreha Sinfonia®) is performed. A camera-based calibration procedure for the bending sensors embedded in the Gloreha Sinfonia robotic glove for hand rehabilitation is introduced to retrieve the range of motion (i.e. the flexion angle excursion of the finger metacarpophalangeal joints) of the patients' hand. Once calibrated, the sensors embedded in the glove have been used to objectively assess the motor performance of chronic post-stroke patients that underwent a robotic treatment with the Gloreha Sinfonia glove. The preliminary results obtained on ten post-stroke patients demonstrated i) that the camera-based procedure permits to retrieve joints' angular values from bending sensors embedded in the glove ii) an improvement in motor performance.

Robotic hand treatment of patients affected by chronic stroke: a monocentric longitudinal pilot study.

Few studies investigated the effects of a robotic treatment in hand motor recovery after stroke. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of treatment by means of Gloreha Sinfonia® robotic glove in hand motor recovery of a chronic stroke sample of patients with different impairment severity. Thirteen chronic stroke subjects were assigned to either active-assisted robotic treatment or passive robotic treatment according to their ability to actively extend wrist for at least 20 degrees. All subjects underwent 20 sessions of treatment with Gloreha Sinfonia® and were evaluated before (T0), after treatment (T1) and after one month (T2) with clinical scales testing motor performance [Motor Power (MP); Fugl Meyer Upper-Extremity (FMUE)] and spasticity [Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS)]. Both groups showed significant motor recovery and spasticity reduction. Further randomized controlled trials with larger samples are needed to confirm our results.