Abstract
BackgroundSocially assistive robots (SARs) have been proposed as a tool to help individuals who have had a stroke to perform their exercise during their rehabilitation process. Yet, to date, there are no data on the motivating benefit of SARs in a long-term interaction with post-stroke patients.MethodsHere, we describe a robot-based gamified exercise platform, which we developed for long-term post-stroke rehabilitation. The platform uses the humanoid robot Pepper, and also has a computer-based configuration (with no robot). It includes seven gamified sets of exercises, which are based on functional tasks from the everyday life of the patients. The platform gives the patients instructions, as well as feedback on their performance, and can track their performance over time. We performed a long-term patient-usability study, where 24 post-stroke patients were randomly allocated to exercise with this platform—either with the robot or the computer configuration—over a 5–7 week period, 3 times per week, for a total of 306 sessions.ResultsThe participants in both groups reported that this rehabilitation platform addressed their arm rehabilitation needs, and they expressed their desire to continue training with it even after the study ended. We found a trend for higher acceptance of the system by the participants in the robot group on all parameters; however, this difference was not significant. We found that system failures did not affect the long-term trust that users felt towards the system.ConclusionsWe demonstrated the usability of using this platform for a long-term rehabilitation with post-stroke patients in a clinical setting. We found high levels of acceptance of both platform configurations by patients following this interaction, with higher ratings given to the SAR configuration. We show that it is not the mere use of technology that increases the motivation of the person to practice, but rather it is the appreciation of the technology’s effectiveness and its perceived contribution to the rehabilitation process. In addition, we provide a list of guidelines that can be used when designing and implementing other technological tools for rehabilitation.Trial registration: This trial is registered in the NIH ClinicalTrials.gov database. Registration number NCT03651063, registration date 21.08.2018. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03651063.
Highlights
Assistive robots (SARs) have been proposed as a tool to help individuals who have had a stroke to perform their exercise during their rehabilitation process
While in previous work we described a preliminary version of the Cup Game [18], gave a brief description of the Kitchen Game [19, 20], and of the basic principles of the set of exercises [18,19,20], and the semi-autonomous characteristics of the system [20], in the current work, it is the first time we describe in detail all seven exercise sets, the different features of the system and its technical characteristics, alongside user reports from 20 individuals with stroke, who trained with the system for 15 sessions each
Here, we describe a robot-based gamified exercise system for long-term post-stroke rehabilitation, which can track the performance of patients over time
Summary
Assistive robots (SARs) have been proposed as a tool to help individuals who have had a stroke to perform their exercise during their rehabilitation process. It is imperative to devise feasible, alternative methods for long-term rehabilitation [4], which do not depend solely on the availability of the therapist, to be used both in the rehabilitation center and in patients’ homes [10] These methods need to promote and motivate patients to practice their exercise, in order to improve the function of the impaired arm [4]. Competitive and cooperative gamified tasks have been shown to increase motivation and exercise intensity of stroke patients when playing with another patient [12] or when playing with a healthy individual as a partner [9] These suggest that the presence of a partner and of competition increases motivation and engagement. Assistive Robots (SARs) have been designed for this purpose [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
