Rehabilitation technologies application in stroke and traumatic brain injury patients

Abstract

Neurorehabilitation plays a crucial role in the multidisciplinary management of brain injury patients. Emergent therapies based on rehabilitation technologies such as robots, bci, FES, and virtual reality could facilitate cognitive and sensorimotor recovery by supporting and motivating patients to practice-specific tasks on high repetitive levels during different stages of rehabilitation. Robots have become a promising task-oriented tool intended to restore upper limb function and a more normal gait pattern.Virtual reality environments by providing powerful sensorimotor feedback and increasing user interaction with a virtual scenario could improve gait, balance, and upper limb motor function. This chapter will provide an overview on the rationale of introducing rehabilitation technologies-based therapies into clinical settings and discuss their evidence for effectiveness, safety, and value for stroke and traumatic brain injury patients. In addition, recommendations for goal setting and practice of training based on disease-related symptoms and functional impairment are summarized together with reliable functional assessments.