Severely impaired stroke survivors are regaining function in their arms, sometimes decades of immobility, thanks to a new video game-led training device invented by Northwestern Medicine scientists.
When integrated with a customized video game, the device, called a myoelectric computer interface (MyoCI), helped retrain stroke survivors’ arm muscles to move more normally. Most of the 32 study participants experienced increased arm mobility and reduced arm stiffness while they were using the training interface. Most participants retained their arm function a month after finishing the training.
The study was published March 19 in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.
Only about 30 percent of stroke patients in the United States receive therapy after their initial in-patient rehabilitation stay, often because their injury is too severe to benefit from standard therapy, it costs too much or they’re too far from a therapist. This small, preliminary study lays the groundwork for inexpensive, wearable, at-home therapy options for severely impaired stroke survivors.
Patients in the study were severely impaired – could only slightly move their arm and extend their elbow– and had their stroke at least six months prior to beginning the study. The average patient was more than six years out from their stroke and some were decades out.
The study was funded in part by National Institutes of Health Grants R21NS084069, R01NS099210 and UL1TR001422 (as part of the Northwestern University Dixon Translational Research Grant). Other Northwestern authors included Emily Mugler, Goran Tomic, Aparna Singh, Dr. Saad Hameed, Eric Lindberg, Jon Gaide, Tyler Jacobson and Jungwha Lee.