Long-Term Social Human-Robot Interaction for Neurorehabilitation: Robots as a Tool to Support Gait Therapy in the Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic has affected the population worldwide, evidencing new challenges and opportunities for several kinds of emergent and existing technologies. Social Assistive Robotics could be a potential tool to support clinical care areas, promoting physical distancing, and reducing the contagion rate. In this context, this paper presents a long-term evaluation of a social robotic platform for gait neurorehabilitation. The robot's primary roles are monitoring physiological progress and promoting social interaction with human distancing during the sessions. A clinical validation with ten patients during 15 sessions were conducted in a rehabilitation center located in Colombia. Results showed that the robot's support improves the patients' physiological progress by reducing their unhealthy spinal posture time, with positive acceptance. 65% of patients described the platform as helpful and secure. Regarding the robot's role within the therapy, the health care staff agreed (>95%) that this tool can promote physical distancing and it is highly useful to support neurorehabilitation throughout the pandemic. These outcomes suggest the benefits of this tool to be further implemented in the pandemic.

Effect of Short-Term Metro-Rhythmic Stimulations on Gait Variability

The aim of the study was to define the effect of different short-term metro-rhythmic stimulations on the time and spatial parameters of gait. The secondary goal was to test whether prior instructions on how to respond to stimulations played a significant role in the stimulation by sound stimuli. Experimental tests of gait were conducted on a group of 36 healthy participants: group 1—subjects who were not informed how to react after hearing sound stimuli, group 2—subjects who received a clear instruction before the test to adjust the frequency of taking steps to the rhythm of the music. The gait research was carried out on a Zebris FDM-S (zebris Medical Gmbh, Isny, Germany) treadmill for various sound stimuli (arrhythmic stimulus, rhythmic stimuli at different rate). It was shown that a short-term influence of metro-rhythmic stimulations changes the time and spatial parameters of gait, i.e., gait frequency, length and duration of the gait cycle. The greatest impact on the modification of the time–space parameters of walking is exerted by rhythmic stimuli at a pace different from the frequency of gait at a preferred velocity. Providing information on how to respond to sounds heard may be important in gait therapy with RAS (rhythmic auditory stimulation).

Use of Acoustic Feedback to Change Gait Patterns: Implementation and Transfer to Motor Learning Theory—A Scoping Review

Changing gait parameters through acoustic feedback is a promising approach in gait therapy. The question remains to what extent, if any, the theories and concepts of motor learning have been taken into account for acoustic feedback systems development. Fifteen studies were identified for further analysis using a scoping review framework, among which seven had individuals with disordered gait as their population and eight incorporated healthy individuals. It was found that most studies used error feedback and did not test for long-term effects on gait parameters. It can be concluded that future studies should apply motor learning theories and concepts to the development of acoustic feedback devices for gait therapy.