MedWire News: Stroke patients gain greater benefits from therapist-assisted physical rehabilitation therapy than robot-assisted therapy, study results show.

Research has shown that, for patients who have suffered strokes, physical therapy that involves moving their legs in a way that mimics walking can help them recover their walking ability. Physical therapists often help patients too weak to walk on their own by fitting them in a harness, putting them on a treadmill and helping them move as they would when walking.

However, this can be physically demanding for the therapist and, therefore, robotic devices have been developed as an alternative.

"We wanted to know whether using a robotic device that guides the limb in a symmetrical walking pattern would facilitate greater improvements in walking speed and symmetry than more traditional walking interventions with a physical therapist," said lead researcher Dr George Hornby, from the University of Illinois in Chicago, USA.

The team studied 48 stroke patients who had moderate to severe problems caused by weakness down one side of their bodies. The patients were assigned to either robotic-assisted 'locomotor' training or traditional physical therapist-assisted locomotor therapy.

All the participants received 12 therapy sessions lasting 30 minutes over the course of 4-5 weeks.

The researchers found that all the patients experienced significant improvements in their walking abilities over the course of the study. However, patients assigned to a physical therapist showed greater improvements that those who received robot-assisted therapy.

Patients assigned to a physical therapist also perceived greater improvements in their quality of life than the other patients.

"Therapist-assisted locomotor training facilitates greater improvements in walking ability in ambulatory stroke survivors as compared to a similar dosage of robotic-assisted locomotor training," the researchers write in the journal Stroke,.

Speculating on the reasons for their findings, Dr Hornby said that, unlike human therapists, robots can not make allowances for human error during therapy sessions.

"When learning to walk again, if people can make mistakes and realize their errors and change their behaviour based on those errors, they may learn better," he said.

"We also think that patients work harder and therefore improve more with therapists because the robotic device moved patients' legs for them throughout the therapy. Therapists only help as needed."