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When integrated with a customized video game, the device, called a myoelectric computer interface (MyoCI), helped retrain stroke survivors' arm muscles into moving more normally. Most of the 32 study participants experienced increased arm mobility and reduced arm stiffness while they were using the training interface. Most participants retained their arm function a month after finishing the training.
The study was be published March 19 in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.
Long-term, I envision having flexible, fully wireless electrodes that an occupational therapist could quickly apply in their office, and patients could go home and train by themselves.
Dr. Marc Slutzky
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Abnormal coupling of muscles leaves many stroke patients with a bent elbow, which makes it difficult to benefit from typical task-based stroke-rehabilitation therapies, such as training on bathing, getting dressed and eating.
Only about 30 percent of stroke patients in the United States receive therapy after their initial in-patient rehabilitation stay, often because their injury is too severe to benefit from standard therapy, it costs too much, or they're too far from a therapist. This small, preliminary study lays the groundwork for inexpensive, wearable, at-home therapy options for severely impaired stroke survivors.
"We're still in the very early stages but I'm hopeful this may be an effective new type of stroke therapy," Slutzky said. "The goal is to one day let patients buy the training device inexpensively, potentially without even needing insurance and use it wirelessly in their home."
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