Effect of Robot-Assisted Therapy on Participation of People with Limited Upper Limb Functioning: A Systematic Review with GRADE Recommendations.
Fernanda M R M Ferreira, Maria Emília A Chaves, Vinícius C Oliveira and 3 others
PMID 34393681WHAT IT FOUND
Adding robot-assisted therapy to conventional therapy did not improve participation and showed a negative short-term effect compared to conventional therapy alone.
Robots beat usual care in one small study, but evidence was very low quality. Do not expect robots to boost real-life engagement.
Key findings
01Adding robot-assisted therapy to conventional therapy resulted in a medium negative short-term effect on participation compared to conventional therapy alone.
02Robot-assisted therapy improved participation compared to minimal intervention in the short term, but this finding relies on a single study with very low-quality evidence.
03There was no short-term effect of robot-assisted therapy on participation when compared directly to other active interventions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The evidence for RT being better than usual care comes from only one small study, making the conclusion unstable. Most participants were in the chronic phase of stroke recovery, so results may not apply to acute patients. The negative effect of adding RT to conventional therapy is counter-intuitive and may be influenced by how participation was measured or by the specific robotic devices used. None of the included studies were double-blinded, and participant and therapist blinding was impossible, which introduces potential bias. The review included quality of life measures as part of participation, which may dilute the specific finding regarding real-life involvement.
Declared interests
The text does not explicitly state funding sources or author conflicts of interest in the provided snippets, though it notes the protocol was registered in PROSPERO.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the negative effect of adding robots to conventional therapy as proof that robots are harmful. It may reflect that the robotic intervention displaced more effective conventional therapy time, or that the outcome measures were sensitive to the disruption of routine, rather than a direct negative impact of the technology itself.