A drop-out rate in a long-term cognitive rehabilitation program through robotics aimed at children with TBI

Abstract

This paper describes in detail the robot platform used in a rehabilitation program for children with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) under a project to compare a rehabilitation program through robotics (1) with a conventional rehabilitation program directed to parents (2) and a control group where no specific intervention is done (3). As LEGO <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> has been demonstrated as a useful robotic tool able to enhance children motivation, we have used it attached to an iPod which includes several activities defined by neuropsychologists and customized for each patient. In this paper we present the hardware and the software of this robotic platform and also the description of the activities that have already been proposed to patients. We present results about the use of the robot showing that the drop-out rate is lower in the intervention group with robots than in the program directed to parents.