Functional Recovery Following Stroke Assisted by the Tutor System

In the November, December 2011 issue of the Journal:Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation there is an article written by Drs. Eric Wade and Carolee J. Winstein of the
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
To promote functional recovery after a stroke it requires innovative and collaborative approaches to neurorehabilitation research. Task-oriented training (TOT) approaches that include challenging, adaptable, and meaningful activities have led to successful outcomes in several definitive trials. This, along with recent technological advances of virtual reality and devices like the HANDTUTOR, ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR and 3DTUTOR, provide an environment for furthering clinical research in neurorehabilitation.
Both virtual reality and the TUTORS make use of multimodal sensory interfaces to affect human behavior. In the therapeutic setting, these systems can be used to quantitatively monitor, manipulate, and augment the users’ interaction with their environment, with the goal of promoting functional recovery.
The TUTORS provide just such functional recovery following a stroke. The innovative devices include challenging activities leading to successful outcomes.
The HANDTUTOR, ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR and 3DTUTOR are motion capture gloves and arm and leg braces that implement an impairment oriented training based program with augmented feedback and encourage motor learning through intensive and repetitive exercises. The exercise practice is the physical and occupational therapist’s tool to improve the patient’s sensory, motor and cognitive movement ability. The TUTORs use movement feedback and dedicated rehabilitation games to make sure that the exercises performed by the patient who had a stroke, spinal cord/brain injury , Cerebral palsy, or after orthopedic surgery and trauma are challenging and motivating to the patient. This is because, the physiotherapist or occupational therapist can tailor the repetitive exercises to the patient’s exercise performance ability. Currently part of the rehabilitation program of leading U.S. and foreign hospitals the TUTORS are also used in clinics and at home through the use of telerehabilitation using the internet. See WWW.HANDTUTOR.COM for further information