Assessment of upper limb motor impairments in children with cerebral palsy using a rehabilitation robot and serious game exercise

Abstract

Brain damaged patients require long and intensive rehabilitation. Recent advances in robotic devices and serious games provide two interesting innovations that together, intensify the therapy, and increase the patient motivation to engage in the therapy. In our project, we implemented a serious game on a rehabilitation robot in order to adapt the rehabilitation to the individual impairments of each patient. In the first phase of development, we assessed the patient impairments. Here, we report the validation and reproducibility of the robotic upper limb motor assessment. The protocol assessed four variables: passive range of motion, elbow flexor and extensor, isometric and isokinetic strength, and upper limb kinematics. The results showed that the protocol had good validity and reproducibility. In the second phase of development, the robotic motor assessment will be integrated to the serious game to provide a continuous measure of motor performance. This allow a continuous adaptation of the rehabilitation in function of each patient’s impairments severity.