The WristBot constitutes a comprehensive, integrated robotic system for the early diagnosis and rehabilitation of sensory and fine motor dysfunction to neurological or orthopedic disease. It has been validated in three clinical trials, including orthopaedic patients, Parkinsons disease and 9 chronic stroke patients. Its unique feature uses adaptive, progressive robot-aided therapy to achieve intensive, task specific wrist movements.~In the context of the proposed project we will target the stroke population. Integration refers here to the system's ability to perform the assessment of proprioceptive status and proprioceptive training in a single device. The scope of the current project is investigating the efficacy of the proprioceptive assessment of the WristBot and correlating the result throughout the rehabilitation protocol. The proposed technology comprises a hardware device with four motors that can apply torques to the human wrist about its three degrees of freedom (i.e. axes of rotation: wrist flexion/extension,abduction/adduction and forearm pronation/supination). This allows for guided and controlled movements of the wrist by delivering assistive, resistive, perturbation or no forces (patient actively moves the wrist). It contains a set of specialized software modules that a) allow for the objective, psychophysical assessment of sensory dysfunction in patients, and b) provide specialized training modules designed to improve sensory and motor functions of the wrist.
The WristBot constitutes a comprehensive, integrated robotic system for the early diagnosis and rehabilitation of sensory and fine motor dysfunction to neurological or orthopedic disease.