Robotic therapy for chronic motor impairments after stroke: Follow-up results.

Abstract

To study the effects of robotic rehabilitation in persons with chronic motor impairments after stroke and to examine whether improvements in motor abilities were sustained 4 months after the end of therapy. Pretest-posttest design. Rehabilitation hospital, outpatient care. Volunteer sample of 42 persons with persistent hemiparesis from a single, unilateral stroke within the past 1 to 5 years. Robotic therapy for the paretic upper limb consisted of either sensorimotor active-assistive exercise, or progressive-resistive training during repetitive, planar reaching tasks, 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Modified Ashworth Scale, Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA), Motor Status Scale (MSS) score, and Medical Research Council motor power score. No significant differences were found among pretreatment clinical evaluations. Statistically significant gains from admission to discharge and from admission to follow-up (P<.05) were found on the FMA, MSS score for shoulder and elbow, and motor power score. Short-term, goal-directed robotic therapy can significantly improve motor abilities of the exercised limb segments in persons with chronic stroke that are sustained 4 months after discharge. This suggests that motor recovery can be enhanced by repetitive exercise training more than 1 year after stroke.