Neuro-rehabilitation therapy with T-FLEX ankle exoskeleton and serious games: A case study

Gomez-Vargas, Daniel; Pino, Angie; Garzón, Andrea; Garzon, Andrea; Roberti, Flavio; Carelli, Ricardo; Munera, Marcela; Cifuentes, Carlos A.

Abstract

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) causes permanent disabilities, such as foot drop. This condition affects the gait pattern, increasing the metabolic cost and risk of falling. Robotics with serious games has shown promising results in the gait rehabilitation context. This paper aims to analyze the effects of using the T-FLEX exoskeleton with (1) Automated Therapy (AT) and (2) Serious Game Therapy (SGT) in two ABI patients. Each participant completed six assisted sessions for each strategy. Results showed that AT increases the user-robot interaction torque by 10% for the first patient and 70% for the second patient, and SGT decreases by 5% for both patients. This way, SGT required the patient to generate torque to execute the ankle movement, while AT did the opposite, resulting in greater device assistance. In the functional assessment, SGT induced variations greater than 50% for the paretic ankle and knee's range of motion (ROM), indicating a potential for motor recovery. Thus, SGT led to improved ankle control and increased gait speed compared to AT. These findings suggest that SGT may be an effective rehabilitation strategy for ABI-related foot drop patients.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR)
• Start Date: Sep 24, 2023
• End Date: Sep 28, 2023
• Acceptance Date: Jun 30, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Nov 8, 2023
• Publication Date: Nov 8, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 19, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 9, 2025
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Book Title: 2023 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR)
• ISBN: 9798350342765
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICORR58425.2023.10304765
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11449460