Poststroke upper extremity rehabilitation: a review of robotic systems and clinical results.

Although the use of robotic devices to address neuromuscular rehabilitative goals represents a promising technological advance in medical care, the large number of systems being developed and varying levels of clinical study of the devices make it difficult to follow and interpret the results in this new field. This article is a review of the current state-of-the-art in robotic applications in poststroke therapy for the upper extremity, written specifically to help clinicians determine the differences between various systems. We concentrate primarily on systems that have been tested clinically.