• Min-Jae Lee, Jung-Hoon Lee, and Sun-Min Lee.
• Department of Occupational Therapy, Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science, Daegu University, Gyeongsan-si, Korea.
• Technol Health Care. 2018 Jan 1; 26 (4): 659-666.

BackgroundMany robots can induce passive movements and passive resistance movements to facilitate recovery of upper-extremity function, but it is rare to find robots that can also enable active resistance movements.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of robot-assisted therapy on upper-extremity function and the ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) in patients with stroke-induced hemiplegia.MethodsThirty patients with stroke-induced hemiplegia were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups, with 15 patients in each group. All subjects underwent general occupational therapy consisting of five 30-min sessions per week for 8 weeks, in addition to 30 min of robot-assisted therapy for the experimental group and 30 additional min of general occupational therapy for the control group for each session.ResultsBoth the experimental and control groups showed a statistically significant increase in post-treatment Fugl-Meyer assessment and modified Barthel index scores compared to the pre-treatment scores. Intergroup comparisons revealed that the experimental group showed a statistically significant greater increase in scores for all assessments than the control group did (p< 0.05).ConclusionThe findings from this study showed that combining robot-assisted therapy with general occupational therapy may enhance upper-extremity function and the ability to perform ADL in patients with stroke-induced hemiplegia compared to those obtained with general occupational therapy alone.

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