A team of scientists has developed a system that allows a robot to communicate with a patient using a headset that detects neural activity. The scientists developed the system which is led by the National Robotarium’s Human Robot Interaction (HRI) team, in partnership with the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. The socially assistive robots can process the user’s brain signals to understand their intended movements. As such, they can act as robotic rehabilitation coaches. It could turn out to be another great use case for medical robotics. The robots used in the study were programmed to help patients adhere to their rehabilitation routines without the intervention of a human medical practitioner. They can provide personalized support based on the patient’s individual requirements. Such systems could be used to help stroke and brain injury victims rehabilitate limb impairments. The headset the researchers developed for the trial uses a brain computer interface (BCI), that can read neural activity.
According to the researchers behind the project, roughly 80 percent of acute stroke and brain injury survivors suffer an upper limb impairment, which can drastically affect their quality of life. However, rehabilitating limb movement requires repetitive exercises, which can be a problem for stroke and brain injury survivors. Often, they also suffer from forgetfulness, meaning roughly 70 percent don’t complete their prescribed rehabilitation routines. Over a three-month period, the team carried out a trial with 16 stroke and brain injury survivors. Six therapists were present to record and test the system’s capacity for understanding user intention and providing motivation. They set out to determine whether the robots could read brain waves and provide real-time examples of the movements the patients had to perform. The researchers also questioned the patients to determine how effective the robots were are motivating and guiding them through their exercises.
More information:
https://interestingengineering.com/health/headset-equipped-robot-coaches-stroke-patients