The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to determine whether using both brain and muscle signals to control a wrist-hand rehabilitation robot can improve recovery in people with chronic stroke.
A total of 48 participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. Both groups will receive 20 sessions of wrist-hand rehabilitation using an exoneuromusculoskeleton rehabilitation robot.
In the closed-loop sensorimotor integrated group, the system will use information from both brain-muscle coordination and muscle activity to recognize the participant's movement intention and provide electrical stimulation and robotic assistance. In the electromyography-driven group, the system will use muscle activity alone to control the electrical stimulation and robotic assistance.
The main questions this study aims to answer are:
Does control using both brain and muscle signals improve wrist and hand motor function more than control using muscle signals alone? Does this approach produce greater changes in coordination between the brain and muscles? Participants will complete motor-function and brain-muscle assessments before training, immediately after the 20 training sessions, and 3 months after training.
at least 6 months after the onset of a unilateral lesion due to stroke;
moderate to severe motor disability in the paretic wrist-hand joints (6<Fugl-Meyer Wrist-Hand Assessment (FMAWH)<14) and spasticity in wrist-hand (Modified Ashworth Score (MAS) ≤3);
sensory impairment on their affected forearm with a score of 1 measured by the sensation part of light touch in the FMA;
maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) with detectable EMG (3 times of the standard deviation above the resting EMG baseline) in the muscle union of the flexor digitorum and flexor carpi radialis (FD-FCR) and that of the extensor digitorum and extensor carpi ulnaris (ED-ECU);
currently pregnant;
dysphasia (language deficiency);
skull implantation;
post-stroke neglect;