Review
Robotic Therapies for Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review
Bayon C, Raya R, Sergio LL, Ramirez O, Serrano J I & Rocon E
Translational Biomedicine 2016, 7(1):44
Objective: For children with cerebral palsy, what is the evidence for robot-based rehabilitation?
Process: The authors performed a systematic review using the PRISMA protocol http://www.prisma-statement.org/ They searched 4 terms: robot, children, therapies and cerebral palsy. This resulted in 44 included studies that were broken into 4 groups: lower extremities (gait), upper extremities, virtual reality as an adjunct to the therapy and clinical applications. The authors do not define the term ‘robot’, and although the search results in articles that include the word robot, the articles are not specifically about robots, but assistive machines. Robots possess a degree of autonomy, this key quality separates robots from machines. The upper and lower extremity devices discussed in this review are passive (mechanical) or power-assistive (electro-mechanical) machines: (NF-walker, Innowalk, LOKOMAT, GT-1 RehaStim, Inmotionarm, ARMEO, Yougrabber and REAplan).
Findings: “There is still a lack of randomised clinical trials with a representative number of subjects, which makes it difficult to evaluate the impact of robot-based therapy, especially the long-term effects. The inclusion of cognitive aspects into the therapies and the design of virtual scenarios in combination with robotic devices provide promising results.”