Prototyping Applications for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation With Kinesthesic Haptic Technology

Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide, often resulting in hemiplegia, necessitating extensive rehabilitation to regain function and movement. Physical therapy plays a crucial role in helping patients regain basic motor skills. This study explored the application of robotic technology, particularly kinesthetic haptic technology, in post-stroke rehabilitation. While tactile haptics are prevalent in consumer interfaces, kinesthetic haptics, which involve reaction force sensations, show promise for directly guiding and retraining patient movements. We present a novel rehabilitation support system utilizing kinesthetic haptics that offers various applications for different control methods, thereby enhancing the opportunities for patients and therapists. Our research, which was conducted in both clinical and laboratory settings, emphasizes the importance of real-context development for capturing user needs. This study includes clinical experiments with 20 participants and provides insights into the potential of haptic technology to quantify and enhance rehabilitation tasks. Four applications were designed and developed, reflecting basic rehabilitation programs commonly used in clinical practice. Two physical capacity assessment applications provide quantitative data on the patient's ability to regulate force and track trajectories. Two reaching rehabilitation support applications assist patients in performing self- or therapist-guided reaching training. In particular, the implicit reaching support application improved the accuracy of patient movement along targeted trajectories. On average across all patients, the error in the reaching trajectory was reduced to 0.39 times. The system's simple structure allows for versatility, adaptability, and customizability. Our contributions include the development of a kinesthetic haptic rehabilitation system, its clinical validation, and design implications for future robotic rehabilitative support systems.