A reliability assessment of constrained spherical deconvolution-based diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in individuals with chronic stroke.

Background: Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) is commonly used to assess white matter properties after stroke. Novel work is utilizing constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) to estimate complex intra-voxel fiber architecture unaccounted for with tensor-based fiber tractography. However, the reliability of CSD-based tractography has not been established in people with chronic stroke.

Evaluating the User Experience of Exercising Reaching Motions With a Robot That Predicts Desired Movement Difficulty.

The notion of an optimal difficulty during practice has been articulated in many areas of cognitive psychology: flow theory, the challenge point framework, and desirable difficulties. Delivering exercises at a participant's desired difficulty has the potential to improve both motor learning and users' engagement in therapy. Motivation and engagement are among the contributing factors to the success of exercise programs.

Therapists' perceptions of social media and video game technologies in upper limb rehabilitation.

Background: The application of technologies, such as video gaming and social media for rehabilitation, is garnering interest in the medical field. However, little research has examined clinicians' perspectives regarding technology adoption by their clients.

Objective: The objective of our study was to explore therapists' perceptions of how young people and adults with hemiplegia use gaming and social media technologies in daily life and in rehabilitation, and to identify barriers to using these technologies in rehabilitation.

Perceptions of Technology and Its Use for Therapeutic Application for Individuals With Hemiparesis: Findings From Adult and Pediatric Focus Groups.

Background: Digital technology is becoming an increasingly popular means of delivering meaningful therapy to individuals with neurological impairments. An understanding of clients' technology use and their perspectives on incorporating technology into rehabilitation can provide researchers and designers with valuable information to inform development of technologies and technology-based rehabilitation programs.

Objective: This study was designed to establish the current use and perceptions of gaming, social media, and robotics technologies for rehabilitative purposes from the perspective of adults and children with upper limb impairments to identify barriers and enablers to their adoption and use.

Usability testing of gaming and social media applications for stroke and cerebral palsy upper limb rehabilitation.

As part of the FEATHERS (Functional Engagement in Assisted Therapy Through Exercise Robotics) project, two motion tracking and one social networking applications were developed for upper limb rehabilitation of stroke survivors and teenagers with cerebral palsy. The project aims to improve the engagement of clients during therapy by using video games and a social media platform. The applications allow users to control a cursor on a personal computer through bimanual motions, and to interact with their peers and therapists through the social media.

Physiological responses to error amplification in a robotic reaching adaptation task.

Analysis of physiological responses provides an objective measure of a person's affective state and has been proposed as a way to evaluate motivation and engagement of therapy clients during robot-assisted therapy regimens. This paper presents the analysis of three physiological responses to different levels of error amplification in a robotic reaching task to understand the feasibility of using physiological signals in order to modify therapy exercises to achieve higher participant attentiveness. In a pilot study with 22 healthy participants, we analyzed skin conductance, skin temperature, and respiration signals, with two main goals: 1) to compare physiological parameters between baseline (rest) and error-amplified reaching motion periods; and 2) to compare physiological parameters between reaching motion periods with different levels of error amplification.

Video games and rehabilitation: using design principles to enhance engagement in physical therapy.

Patient nonadherence with therapy is a major barrier to rehabilitation. Recovery is often limited and requires prolonged, intensive rehabilitation that is time-consuming, expensive, and difficult. We review evidence for the potential use of video games in rehabilitation with respect to the behavioral, physiological, and motivational effects of gameplay.

Adaptation of task difficulty in rehabilitation exercises based on the user's motor performance and physiological responses.

Although robot-assisted rehabilitation regimens are as effective, functionally, as conventional therapies, they still lack features to increase patients' engagement in the regimen. Providing rehabilitation tasks at a "desirable difficulty" is one of the ways to address this issue and increase the motivation of a patient to continue with the therapy program. Then the problem is to design a system that is capable of estimating the user's desirable difficulty, and ultimately, modifying the task based on this prediction.

Error amplification to promote motor learning and motivation in therapy robotics.

To study the effects of different feedback error amplification methods on a subject's upper-limb motor learning and affect during a point-to-point reaching exercise, we developed a real-time controller for a robotic manipulandum. The reaching environment was visually distorted by implementing a thirty degrees rotation between the coordinate systems of the robot's end-effector and the visual display. Feedback error amplification was provided to subjects as they trained to learn reaching within the visually rotated environment.