PFI-RP: Brain-controlled Upper-Limb Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation Device for Stroke Survivors.

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this PFI project is to advance the national health by accelerating the development, efficacy and use of brain-controlled robotic rehabilitation after stroke by capitalizing on the benefits of non-invasive brain interfaces that extract information about the patient?s motor intent and the real-time assessment of impairment and recovery of motor function. Stroke is the leading cause of neurological disability in the United States with approximately 795,000 people suffering a stroke each year. Arm paresis is a primary cause of disability because of the limitations it creates in performing activities of daily living (ADL). Approximately 80% of all stroke survivors suffer from upper limb paresis and only 18% of these individuals gain full motor recovery with conventional treatments in the year following stroke. Thus, rehabilitation of the impaired limb is essential for improving ADLs and quality of life after stroke, yet only 31% of stroke survivors receive outpatient rehabilitation. Brain-controlled robotic devices are excellent candidates for engaging the patients and delivering the repetitive and intensive practice stroke survivors require for rehabilitation. Our innovative robotic rehabilitation solution will offer increased efficiency, lower expenses, and new sensing capabilities to the therapist while reducing the socioeconomic burden of disability. The proposed project addresses a pressing need for accessible, safe and effective stroke rehabilitation devices for in-clinic and at-home use for sustainable long-term therapy, a global market size expected to reach $31B by 2021. Unfortunately, current devices fail to engage the patients, are hard to match to their needs, are costly to use and maintain, or are limited to clinical settings. Our patient-in-the-loop system solution consists of our patented noninvasive brain-robot technology that translates the user's brain activity into motor commands to drive powered, assist-as-needed, upper-limb robotics for stroke rehabilitation. Feedback of performance will be provided to both the patient and the clinician, and stored for monitoring and diagnostics, through a user interface that also serves to provide engaging real-time feedback of task and associated completion performance. System validation will occur in a clinical setting and at home. The Intellectual Merits include addressing the challenges of fault-tolerant system integration, low-cost device prototyping, usability, shared-control, acquiring validation data, and accelerating the translation to the patient for a new class of biomedical devices. The deliverable is an accessible, safe and effective brain-controlled therapeutical robot system that is multi-functional with real-time self-monitoring, self-diagnostics and self-correcting capabilities, and that promotes neurorecovery of function.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.