A team of European researchers have been developing robotic gloves aimed at helping stroke victims to receive advanced therapy at home. The SCRIPT project (Supervised Care and Rehabilitation Involving Personal Tele-robotics) has led to two prototypes that help develop hand and wrist movement while recording monitoring and recording the patient’s ability to perform a variety of tasks.

The system is designed to allow patients to continue receiving therapy at home once in-clinic rehab sessions are over. The hope is that well targeted therapy in the comfort of the home will lead to meaningful improvements in patients that may otherwise plateau in their motor ability.

Dr Farshid Amirabdollahian, a senior lecturer in adaptive systems at the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Computer Science who co-ordinated the project, said: “This project focused on therapies for stroke patients at home. Our goal was to make motivating therapies available to people to practise at home using this system, hoping that they have a vested interest to practise and will do so. We tried this system with 30 patients and found that patients indeed practised at home, on average around 100 minutes each week, and some showed clinical improvements in their hand and arm function.”

source:A*STAR