IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2019 Jun;27(6):1273-1281. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2019.2914015. Epub 2019 May 1.
The aim of the current study was to examine the role of environment, whether virtual or physical, on robot-assisted reaching movements in chronic stroke and healthy individuals, within a single session. Twenty-three subjects participated in the current study divided into three groups: nine chronic stroke individuals able to perform a reaching task with no need for the robot assistance, nine chronic stroke individuals who needed robot assistance to complete the reaching task, and five healthy individuals. The task was to reach six target buttons in two identical physical and virtual environments. The outcomes consisted of specific kinematic measures (amount of movement completion without robot assistance, mean speed, peak speed, straightness, and shakiness) and a custom questionnaire to assess how the stroke subjects perceived and experienced the reaching task in both environments. The results showed no differences between the two environments in terms of the outcome measures in any of the groups. Our findings suggest that the choice of environment, whether physical or virtual, is not a key factor in designing a simple robot-assisted reaching task for stroke survivors. Further studies are required for more complex environments and tasks as well as robot-assisted training protocols.
本研究旨在考察环境（虚拟或物理环境）在单次治疗中对慢性脑卒中患者和健康个体的机器人辅助上肢运动的作用。23 名受试者被分为三组：9 名能够完成无机器人辅助上肢运动任务的慢性脑卒中患者、9 名需要机器人辅助才能完成上肢运动任务的慢性脑卒中患者和 5 名健康个体。任务是在两个相同的物理和虚拟环境中触及六个目标按钮。结果包括特定的运动学指标（无机器人辅助的运动完成量、平均速度、峰值速度、直线性和不稳定性）和一份自定义问卷，以评估脑卒中患者在两种环境中如何感知和体验上肢运动任务。结果表明，在任何一组中，两种环境在结果测量方面均无差异。我们的研究结果表明，对于设计用于脑卒中幸存者的简单机器人辅助上肢运动任务，环境（物理或虚拟）的选择不是一个关键因素。还需要进行更复杂的环境和任务以及机器人辅助训练方案的进一步研究。
