NCT02772809

Usability Testing of Affordable Haptic Robots for Stroke Therapy

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 23 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Stroke survivors with hemiplegia will be evaluated by rehabilitation professionals and asked to perform a battery of assessments to test the viability and usability of a force-feedback robot that adapts to each individual subject's performance. Subsequently, they will be asked to complete post-assessment questionnaires that provide feedback to the researchers on their observations and thoughts about the therapy devices.

Detailed description

TheraDrive is a low-cost robotic system for post-stroke upper extremity rehabilitation. The system uses off-the-shelf computer gaming wheels with force feedback to help reduce motor impairment and improve function in the arms of stroke survivors. Preliminary results from various studies have shown that the original TheraDrive system lacked a robust mechanical linkage which could withstand the forces exerted by patients, lacked a patient-specific adaptive controller to deliver personalized therapy, and was not capable of delivering effective therapy to severely low-functioning patients. A new low-cost, high-force haptic robot with a single degree of freedom has been developed to address these concerns. This study has two purposes: first, to test the viability and usability of the new robot system alongside the original TheraDrive system; and second, to test if low-functioning patients benefit, and if so how much, from using force-feedback therapy as opposed to devices with zero impedance. This will be done by recruiting approximately 36 human subjects. Exercises will be performed by study subjects and an adaptive controller will monitor patient performance to ensure that exercises are difficult but doable, which is important for maintaining patient motivation. It is hypothesized that not only will the new system be viable, but that it will provide better robot-assisted therapy to a large variety of patients, especially low-functioning stroke survivors with hemiplegia.

Conditions

• Stroke
• Hemiplegia

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Haptic Robot Therapy with Games	Commercial Joystick and Wheels Plus the Haptic TheraDrive Robot will be used. Haptic Theradrive is a low-cost robotic system for post-stroke upper extremity rehabilitation. The system uses off-the-shelf computer gaming wheels with force feedback to help reduce motor impairment and improve function in the arms of stroke survivors.

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-03-01
• Primary completion: 2017-07-01
• Completion: 2017-07-01
• First posted: 2016-05-16
• Last updated: 2020-09-04
• Results posted: 2020-09-04

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States