Home-based system for stroke rehabilitation

A system was developed for home-based stroke motor rehabilitation of the ankle. A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that moving while concentrating will lead to greater recovery than movement alone. Sixteen post-stroke subjects participated, one half in a tracking training group and the other have in a move group. The tracking training group tracked a target waveform by moving their ankle to control the tracking cursor while the move group moved their ankle approximately the same amount but without target following. Over four weeks subjects completed 3600 trials. The results showed that the Tracking group had more improvement in ankle dorsiflexion compared to the Move group. The remaining assessment criteria showed no significant differences between the groups.