Hand motion strength forecasting using Extreme Learning Machine for post-stroke rehabilitation

Stroke or Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) can cause weakness in one side of the body, including the upper limbs such as the hand. Rehabilitation is needed to restore the function of the hand. Rehabilitation should also measure the strength of the movements carried out. This article aims to forecast the strength of movement based on Electromyography (EMG) signals using the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM). This study collected EMG signal data and movement strength, carried out data pre-processing and data extraction using various extraction features, applied ELM for forecasting strength based on EMG signals, and applied created models in stroke therapy robots. The forecasting model is evaluated by measuring the Mean Squared Error (MSE). The average value of the best MSE in offline testing is 1.77, while the real-time testing is 0.79. A small MSE value indicates that the model is good enough. The resulted value of strength can be applied to make the stroke therapy robots actuating properly.

Design for an Art Therapy Robot: An Explorative Review of the Theoretical Foundations for Engaging in Emotional and Creative Painting with a Robot

Social robots are being designed to help support people’s well-being in domestic and public environments. To address increasing incidences of psychological and emotional difficulties such as loneliness, and a shortage of human healthcare workers, we believe that robots will also play a useful role in engaging with people in therapy, on an emotional and creative level, e.g., in music, drama, playing, and art therapy. Here, we focus on the latter case, on an autonomous robot capable of painting with a person. A challenge is that the theoretical foundations are highly complex; we are only just beginning ourselves to understand emotions and creativity in human science, which have been described as highly important challenges in artificial intelligence. To gain insight, we review some of the literature on robots used for therapy and art, potential strategies for interacting, and mechanisms for expressing emotions and creativity. In doing so, we also suggest the usefulness of the responsive art approach as a starting point for art therapy robots, describe a perceived gap between our understanding of emotions in human science and what is currently typically being addressed in engineering studies, and identify some potential ethical pitfalls and solutions for avoiding them. Based on our arguments, we propose a design for an art therapy robot, also discussing a simplified prototype implementation, toward informing future work in the area.

Robot Assisted Neurological Rehabilitation at Home: Motivational Aspects and Concepts for Tele-Rehabilitation

SummaryNumerous clinical studies have proved the efficacy of therapy robots in Neurological Motor Rehabilitation and their potential benefits for clinical outcome results. A major challenge of current technological and clinical research is the transfer of this new technology from the rehab hospital to the patient's home, thus enabling him to continue high level rehab training for further improvement of motor control of the affected limbs. This article focuses on motivational aspects and tele-rehabilitation concepts, which play an important role in the development of robotic training systems for home rehabilitation.