Methods for Evaluating Interlimb Coordination for Bimanual Robotic Therapy after Stroke

Deficits in interlimb coordination(IC) contribute to the functional disability in stroke patients. Addressing IC deficits after stroke has been somewhat overlooked in the realm of robotic bilateral stroke interventions. Our goal is to develop a robotic therapy protocol to improve IC for bimanual tasks and to assess changes in IC due to therapy. We evaluated the metrics of phase difference (PD), goal synchronization (GS), task completion time (TCT), % movement overlap (%MO) to determine which are most sensitive to IC on both symmetric and asymmetric bimanual functional tasks (e.g., drink and feed). We assessed IC for able-bodied and strokes. We showed PD, TCT, and %MO to be sensitive to differences in IC across subject groups. PD was more sensitive in the symmetrical task while TCT and %MO were more sensitive in the asymmetrical task. Creating a robotic intervention with these metrics will enable us to explore the efficacy of addressing coordination deficits after stroke.