FES&BCI based rehabilitation engineered equipment: Clinical tests and perspectives

This paper deals with some research outcomes in the field of FES&BCI based rehabilitation equipment, specifically, hybrid exoskeleton&FES&BCI systems. The novelty of the proposed FES&exoskeleton systems is the balanced control between FES, voluntary motion induced by the user and the exoskeleton trajectory guidance. The upper limb exoskeleton&FES hybrid EXOSLIM system has been tested on two patients, it is still under clinical trial, and proved encouraging results while assessed with FGM scores and joints amplitude measurements. The BCI&EXOSLIM system proved a feasible one too. A MI-BCI&FES system to rehabilitate the hand, has been tested on 3 stroke patients, over 22 sessions each, and show error rates less than 5% in moving, with FES too, the proper hand as indicated by the paradigm. The hand exoskeleton&FES IHRG system has been tested within a clinical randomized controlled study (25 stroke patients; 13 in the control group). The patients in the IHRG group showed a slight increase of average motor gain than the control group, assessed with Fugl-Meyer Assessment and Box and Blocks test.