Effectiveness of Adding Robotic Therapy to Conventional Therapy for Acute Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Paresis

HYPOTHESES

• Motor function will be significantly greater for the patients in the robotic training group as measured by standard clinical evaluations.
• Functional independence gains will be similar for both groups because the robotic therapy is not task-specific for activities of daily living (ADL).
• Robotic training will reduce pain and spasticity more effectively than conventional therapy alone, due to increased number of movements performed during the robotic training.
• Muscle activation patterns for patients receiving robotic training will show decreased agonist/antagonist co-contraction and less erratic muscle activation.
• Robotic training patients will demonstrate significantly greater ROM, movement accuracy and higher movement speed during exercises performed as part of robotic training. For robotic exercises performed only as part of the robotic assessment, these improvements will be significantly less than those for practiced movements.