Machine Learning Techniques for the Prediction of Functional Outcomes in the Rehabilitation of Post-Stroke Patients: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Stroke is one of the main causes of long-term disabilities, increasing the cost of national healthcare systems due to the elevated costs of rigorous treatment that is required, as well as personal cost because of the decreased ability of the patient to work. Traditional rehabilitation strategies rely heavily on individual clinical data and the caregiver’s experience to evaluate the patient and not in data extracted from population data. The use of machine learning (ML) algorithms can offer evaluation tools that will lead to new personalized interventions. The aim of this scoping review is to introduce the reader to key directions of ML techniques for the prediction of functional outcomes in stroke rehabilitation and identify future scientific research directions. The search of the relevant literature was performed using PubMed and Semantic Scholar online databases. Full-text articles were included if they focused on ML in predicting the functional outcome of stroke rehabilitation. A total of 26 out of the 265 articles met our inclusion criteria. The selected studies included ML approaches and were directly related to the inclusion criteria. ML can play a key role in supporting decision making during pre- and post-treatment interventions for post-stroke survivors, by utilizing multidisciplinary data sources.