Robotic Therapy
Burke Rehabilitation Hospital offers robotics therapy for spinal cord inured patients in a clinical trial program at the Burke Medical Research Institute. Robotic therapy has been very successful in increasing upper extremity strength and quality of movement in people who have weakness or paralysis following a stroke. Improvement occurs because the robot combines the patient’s intent to move with completed arm movement that is prompted by a visual target on a computer screen. This combination of visual stimuli and robot assisted movement re-establishes representations of these movements, or neuroplasticity, within the brain itself.

Since the brain and the motor cells in the spinal cord are connected through a series of feedback loops, Burke is conducting clinical trials to see if robots may be able to retrain the spinal cord in the same way, and, therefore, have an impact on a patient’s flexibility after spinal cord injury. Preliminary data suggests that individuals with spinal cord injuries do experience bilateral improvements in upper extremity strength after six weeks of robot training for each arm.

The adaptive robot combines the movements at the shoulder and elbow with movements of the wrist, and builds on previousl y learned skills. Progress is measured by a series of clinical and robotic evaluations given to each arm every three weeks. For information on the robotic therapy program at the Burke Medical Research Institute, call Avrielle Rykman-Berland, Occupational Therapist/Research Coordinator at (914) 597-2220, or Johanna Zipse, Research Associate, at (914) 597-2471.