Bimanual motor skill learning with robotics in chronic stroke: comparison between minimally impaired and moderately impaired patients, and healthy individuals.

Only 24 patients with chronic stroke and 10 healthy controls were studied, and the patient group was heterogeneous in stroke size, residual impairment, and time since stroke. Patients had mostly mild to moderate upper-limb impairment, with Fugl-Meyer scores from 28 to 66, so results may not apply to more severely impaired patients. The randomization assigned which hand controlled which movement direction, not whether a patient received robot training versus usual therapy. Patients were split into minimal and moderate impairment groups after looking at baseline Fugl-Meyer scores, so the impairment groups were not randomized by impairment level. Day 3 included extra generalization and reaching tests, so fatigue could have affected later performance. Large interindividual variability was seen, and the study did not relate outcomes to stroke size or location on imaging. ABILHAND did not correlate with robot outcomes, so the link to self-reported bimanual daily activities is unclear.

Funded by Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS, Fondation Mont-Godinne, Fonds Spécial de Recherche (FSR), and Fondation Roi Baudoin/Fonds Amélie. No competing-interests statement is provided in the supplied text.

Do not read the learning and transfer results as proof that this robot improves daily activities. The study did not compare robot training with usual therapy, patients had mostly mild to moderate impairment, and the ABILHAND daily-activity score did not correlate with robotic outcomes.