Patients who've had a stroke and were rehabilitated using a robot to navigate virtual reality environments walked faster and a greater distance following physical therapy compared to those trained with the robot alone, according to researchers at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions.
This study is believed to be the first to demonstrate improved walking ability in the laboratory and the community following rehabilitation with the robot-virtual reality system according to the researchers. "Effects of Training With a Robot-Virtual Reality System Compared With a Robot Alone on the Gait of Individuals After Stroke" details their results and will appear in the March print edition of Stroke , a journal on cerebrovascular diseases published by the American Heart Association. The article is available online now for journal subscribers.
"A robot alone only gives you a mechanism for doing the exercise. There is lots of repetition, which is a really big part of getting better, but the argument is you have to do the exercise for a purpose," explained Judith E. Deutsch, PT, Ph.D., professor and director of the Research in Virtual Environments and Rehabilitation Sciences (RIVERS) Lab in the Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Science at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions and a co-author of this study.
In the study, patients manipulated the robot, which is similar to a handheld gaming joystick, with their feet to navigate a plane and a boat in their virtual environments through various targets and changing weather conditions. The study was conducted by Anat Mirelman, PT, Ph.D., when she was a doctoral candidate at the UMDNJ-School of Health Related Professions. She was supervised by Deutsch and their colleague Paolo Bonato, Ph.D., director of the Motion Analysis Lab at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. Results showed greater improvement in walking velocity and distance, measured in the lab and in the participants' real world environment, for those trained with the robot-virtual reality system compared to those trained with the robot alone.
Deutsch said that as physical therapists learn more about how useful virtual reality systems can be to drive behavior and train patients, there's more and more interfacing of robotics and virtual reality systems for rehabilitation. The RIVERS Lab is one of few already doing it.