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Interactive Mediated Rehabilitation can Significantly Enhance Rehabilitation Therapy for Stroke Survivors
Stroke survivor participates in study for development of interactive mediated rehabilitation at Arizona State University
Achievement/Results
An interdisciplinary research team at the Arizona State University has developed an interactive mediated rehabilitation system that can improve therapy and enhance functional recovery for stroke survivors. The work is supported by an NSF IGERT, an NSF CISE RI and a State of Arizona biomoedical grant.
The system allows stroke survivors to practice functional movement tasks while receiving engaging multimodal feedback that indicates measures of movement performance and denotes causality of error. The goal is activation of conscious sensorimotor integration during the therapy that can promote neural plasticity for recovery of motor and cognitive functions. The system also allows the development of customized therapy protocols for each patient depending on their medical profile and needs. A preliminary study with 3 patients was completed during the 06-07 academic year. A more advanced pilot study with 3 patients participating in 10 sessions each was completed in the 07-08 academic year. Results indicate that interactive mediated rehabilitation can significantly enhance traditional rehabilitation therapy. It furthermore confirms that computer assisted adaptive rehabilitation protocols (a key innovative aspect of the system) are feasible, scalable and preferable to fixed protocols. The team is using the results to develop a scaled down version of the system that can be used in clinics and at home.
The success of the project has lead to a partnership with the Rhodes Rehabilitation center at Banner Baywood Medical Center. A scaled version of the system will be permanently installed at the Medical Center in January 2009 and will be used daily by patients for therapy. This will also allow for the realization of extensive clinical studies for the validation and further improvement of the system.
Address Goals
The project connects rapid developments in computing and digital media to advances in healthcare. It opens the door to experimental studies that systematically manipulate variables of motor learning to further advance rehabilitation treatment.
Developing this system requires interdisciplinary interaction to integrate sophisticated information analysis, sensing and feedback systems and medical technologies. This NSF IGERT grant has contributed significantly to the assembly and dedicated research of such a team. The team has the following interdisciplinary make-up (faculty, students and external collaborators): 5 bioengineers, 3 computer scientists, 3 electrical engineers, 2 physical therapists, 3 medical doctors, 2 animators, 1 music composer, 2 digital media experts and a fabrication specialist.
