Chronic Stroke Patients Benefit From Robotic Upper-limb Rehabilitation

Main Category: Stroke
Also Included In: Rehabilitation / Physical Therapy
Article Date: 14 May 2006 - 1:00 PDT

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Intense, short-term, upper-limb robotic therapy improved motor outcomes among chronic stroke patients. Investigators enrolled 30 patients with upper-limb impairment due to stroke. Over 3 weeks, 18 sessions of robot-assisted therapy were delivered with the use of a robotic exercise device. Significant improvements were observed for severely impaired participants, which indicates that improvement is not limited to individuals with moderate impairments. Moderately and severely impaired patients tolerated intense, frequent, and repetitive treatment. This information is useful for determining the optimal target population, intensity, and duration of robotic therapy and the necessary sample size for a larger trial.

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Highlight from JRRD pg. 717

Contact: Dr. Stacieann Yuhasz
yuhasz@vard.org
VA Research Communications Service

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