Home-based self-help telerehabilitation of the upper limb assisted by an electromyography-driven wrist/hand exoneuromusculoskeleton after stroke.
Chingyi Nam, Bingbing Zhang, Tszying Chow and 7 others
PMID 34526058WHAT IT FOUND
Eleven chronic stroke survivors used a home EMG-driven wrist/hand exoskeleton for 20 sessions.
All completed training with no adverse events. Motor control, muscle coordination, and movement smoothness improved significantly, but daily activity independence scores did not change.
Key findings
01All eleven participants completed the home-based training program without any adverse events such as pain or injury.
02Participants showed significant improvements in upper limb motor function, hand dexterity, and movement efficiency after the training.
03Despite motor improvements, scores on the measure of functional independence in daily activities did not change significantly.
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 study was a single-group pilot with only 11 participants and no control group, so improvements cannot be definitively attributed to the device rather than natural recovery or placebo effects. The evaluation tasks were similar to the training tasks, which may overstate the ability to generalize gains to other activities. There was no long-term follow-up to see if the motor improvements were sustained after the training ended. The sample was highly selected, excluding patients with severe spasticity or cognitive impairment, so results may not apply to all chronic stroke survivors.
Declared interests
The study was supported by Non-U.S. Government funding. The authors state that the EMG-driven exoskeleton was developed by their team, which represents a potential conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that improved motor scores mean the patient can use their hand better in daily life. The study found no significant change in functional independence measures, suggesting that motor gains did not translate to everyday activities without additional intervention.