Evaluation of bilateral transfer characteristics based on virtual impairment

Bilateral movement training based on robot-aided rehabilitation systems has been attracting a lot of attention as a post-stroke motor rehabilitation protocol. In this paper, we investigate the effects of different conditions which were imposed on the unimpaired upper extremity to find exact therapeutic conditions for planning more appropriate bilateral movement training. Active/passive, loaded/non-loaded, and unimanual/bimanual movements were used as the experimental conditions. Twenty subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups, namely the passive group(PG), the active non-load group(ANLG), active load group(ALG), and the control group(CG) and were asked to perform tasks with their left upper extremity with respect to the conditions. The comparison results revealed that the active loaded group showed the recovery time from adaptation was faster than another groups.