Robotic Therapy Holds Promise For Cerebral Palsy

"Robotic therapy can potentially help reduce impairment and facilitate neuro-development of youngsters with cerebral palsy," says Hermano Igo Krebs, principal research scientist in mechanical engineering and one of the project's leaders.

Krebs and others at MIT, including professor of mechanical engineering Neville Hogan, pioneered the use of robotic therapy in the late 1980s, and since then the field has taken off.

"We started with stroke because it's the biggest elephant in the room, and then started to build it out to other areas, including cerebral palsy as well as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury," says Krebs.

The team's suite of robots for shoulder-and-elbow, wrist, hand and ankle has been in clinical trials for more than 15 years with more than 400 stroke patients. The Department of Veterans Affairs has just completed a large-scale, randomized, multi-site clinical study with these devices.

All the devices are based on the same principle: that it is possible to help rebuild brain connections using robotic devices that gently guide the limb as a patient tries to make a specific movement.

When the researchers first decided to apply their work to children with cerebral palsy, Krebs was optimistic that it would succeed, because children's developing brains are more plastic than adults', meaning they are more able to establish new connections.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com