Abstract
Physical rehabilitation therapies for children present a challenge, and its success—the improvement of the patient’s condition—depends on many factors, such as the patient’s attitude and motivation, the correct execution of the exercises prescribed by the specialist or his progressive recovery during the therapy. With the aim to increase the benefits of these therapies, social humanoid robots with a friendly aspect represent a promising tool not only to boost the interaction with the pediatric patient, but also to assist physicians in their work. To achieve both goals, it is essential to monitor in detail the patient’s condition, trying to generate user profile models which enhance the feedback with both the system and the specialist. This paper describes how the project NAOTherapist—a robotic architecture for rehabilitation with social robots—has been upgraded in order to include a monitoring system able to generate user profile models through the interaction with the patient, performing user-adapted therapies. Furthermore, the system has been improved by integrating a machine learning algorithm which recognizes the pose adopted by the patient and by adding a clinical reports generation system based on the QUEST metric.
Highlights
Cerebral palsy is a disease affecting children, and it is notorious for causing a reduction in their movement capacity, primarily in the upper body, preventing the extremities to move as they should.This illness is characterised by its lifelong effects, hindering patients from performing essential actions such as grasping a glass
We look deeper into these tools, showing how user profile models able to describe the patient’s condition are generated, how the robot behaviour is continuously adapted to the patient’s requirements, how the the clinical reports are automatically filled and how the system can learn to detect and evaluate patients using Machine Learning techniques, which allows to further extend the ability of the platform to adapt to the patient condition
In the case of cerebral palsy, the young age of the patients who have to deal with them make an effort to capture their attention and increase their motivation and interaction necessary
Summary
Cerebral palsy is a disease affecting children, and it is notorious for causing a reduction in their movement capacity, primarily in the upper body, preventing the extremities to move as they should. This illness is characterised by its lifelong effects, hindering patients from performing essential actions such as grasping a glass. Its origin is caused by a motor disability produced by a static, non progressive lesion in the brain [1]. There is no cure for this disease, there exist treatments which play a fundamental role to stop it from progressing. In situations where surgical interventions become necessary, rehabilitation therapies are a vital step to obtain the maximum benefit [2]
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