• Hyung Seok Nam, Sukgyu Koh, Jaewon Beom, Yoon Jae Kim, Jang Woo Park, Eun Sil Koh, Sun Gun Chung, and Sungwan Kim.
• Department of Biomedical Engineering, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
• J. Korean Med. Sci. 2017 Oct 1; 32 (10): 1568-1575.

AbstractA novel robotic mirror therapy system was recently developed to provide proprioceptive stimulus to the hemiplegic arm during a mirror therapy. Validation of the robotic mirror therapy system was performed to confirm its synchronicity prior to the clinical study. The mean error angle range between the intact arm and the robot was 1.97 to 4.59 degrees. A 56-year-old male who had right middle cerebral artery infarction 11 months ago received the robotic mirror therapy for ten 30-minute sessions during 2 weeks. Clinical evaluation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were performed before and after the intervention. At the follow-up evaluation, the thumb finding test score improved from 2 to 1 for eye level and from 3 to 1 for overhead level. The Albert's test score on the left side improved from 6 to 11. Improvements were sustained at 2-month follow-up. The fMRI during the passive motion revealed a considerable increase in brain activity at the lower part of the right superior parietal lobule, suggesting the possibility of proprioception enhancement. The robotic mirror therapy system may serve as a useful treatment method for patients with supratentorial stroke to facilitate recovery of proprioceptive deficit and hemineglect.© 2017 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

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