Mirrored movement therapy using an upper body robotic exoskeleton for stroke

This study presents pilot data gathered to validate the kinematics of mirrored movement therapy for the shoulder so that it can be applied to future stroke patient populations. The data was collected on one healthy subject using the Harmony upper body exoskeleton. Three different sample exercises including shoulder abduction/adduction, flexion/extension, and scaption were conducted at five repetitions each. In each exercise, the left arm was relaxed and driven by volitional movement of the right arm. The RMSE of mirrored acromion position from right to left shoulder during each of those exercises was 6.5 mm, 10.6 mm, and 7.1 mm, respectively. Large errors in the flexion and extension movement were noticed, which is likely attributed to undesirable motion capture marker movement. However, the results still show the ability of the robot to mimic acromion position from one side of the body to the other while only attaching to the humerus.