Serious games for neurorehabilitation

Using serious games in neurorehabilitation robot helps improve complex bimanual skills in chronic patients with stroke 

 

 

According to the World Stroke Organization, 1 in 4 people will have a stroke. After a stroke, the patients may suffer from difficulties in activities of daily life requiring cooperative bimanual movements.

A recent study in patients with a chronic stroke showed the interest in using an asymmetrical bimanual coordination task implemented as a serious game in a neurorehabilitation robot.

Over three consecutive days of training, patients with either minimal or mild-to-moderate motor impairment (hemiparesis) were able to improve and retain a complex bimanual skill. Furthermore, they could generalize their performance improvements to different tasks.

In this study, 24 patients and 10 healthy individuals were trained over 3 consecutive days on an asymmetrical bimanual coordination task (CIRCUIT) implemented as a serious game in the robotic device (i.e., REAplan® robot, AXINESIS, Wavre, Belgium). With a common cursor controlled by coordinated movements of the upper limbs through robotic handles, they performed as many laps as possible (speed constraint) on the CIRCUIT while keeping the cursor within the track (accuracy constraint). The primary outcome was a bimanual speed/accuracy trade-off (biSAT), we used a bimanual coordination factor (biCO) and bimanual forces (biFOP) for the secondary outcomes. Several clinical scales were used to evaluate motor and cognitive functions. Overall, the patients showed improvements on biSAT and biCO. Based on biSAT progression, the healthy individuals achieved a larger bim-MSkL than the patients with mild-to-moderate motor impairment but were not significantly different from those with minimal motor impairment.

Both the healthy individuals and patients with chronic stroke training on a robotic device achieved cooperative bimanual motor skill learning, although the more impaired patients were less efficient. Bimanual motor skill learning with the REAplan® robot may be interesting for neurorehabilitation after stroke.

Gerardin, E., Bontemps, D., Babuin, NT. et al. Bimanual motor skill learning with robotics in chronic stroke: comparison between minimally impaired and moderately impaired patients, and healthy individuals. J NeuroEngineering Rehabil 19, 28 (2022).

<<Link to the paper>>

Photo Credit: Axinesis

Published on May 24, 2022