Robots for upper limb rehabilitation are already in use
October 29, 2017 – A disease that affects 200 people a year in Italy alone, with 80 percent of new cases and 20 percent of relapses. About a third of survivors live with a disability and are dependent on their family members. There are those who do not survive: every year the stroke kills 6 million individuals worldwide, 650 in Europe and over 70 in Italy (source: ISS).
But research is making progress offering hopes of recovery also thanks to the new frontier of brain stimulation, while robot for upper limb rehabilitation they promise soon to bring the therapy out of hospitals and clinics, ever closer to the patient. News that researchers atUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, for example through the creation of Icons, the robot that allows you to recover motor functions compromised by a stroke through an interactive game.
But robotic technology is also already at the heart of UBCM's clinical activity. “At our University Hospital – explains the professor Silvia Sterzi, Head ofOperating Unit of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Polyclinic UCBM – we have rehabilitation robots for the treatment of the upper limb in each of its districts: hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder. These devices allow passive, active and active-assisted mobilisations, action observation therapy, the use of sensory feedback. We can also record each session with a report and monitor the patient over time. They are therefore both evaluative and rehabilitative robots. Finally, it is possible to associate non-invasive brain stimulation with robot treatment". And the progress shown by the graphs elaborated by the robots is surprising.
Vagus nerve stimulation and electroceuticals: two new hopes from researchUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma
Among the new frontiers are the experiments of researchers UCBM based on Electroceutics, with numerous applications including stimulation of the vagus nerve. “It is an approach – underlines the professor Vincenzo Di Lazzaro, Professor of Neurology ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma – which involves the use of electric and magnetic fields instead of drugs. Through non-invasive magnetic and electrical brain stimulation it is possible to modulate the activity of brain cells in order to produce plasticity phenomena that favor functional recovery". Among the most important and promising innovations is the stimulation of the vagus nerve. “Already used successfully to combat pain and epilepsy, vagus nerve stimulation also appears to be effective in stroke patients,” he adds. Di Lazzaro, who explains: "Modulating cerebral excitability is as if we were 'hacking' the brain and remodulating the brain circuits damaged by the stroke".
A new type of stimulation which, contrary to its application in cases of epilepsy, does not involve invasive pacemaker installation procedures in the body, but is limited to sending low-intensity electrical impulses to the auricle.
