Quantitative evaluation of stroke paralysis considering individual differences in symptoms

This paper presents evaluation methods to evaluate 2 types of stroke paralysis quantitatively. Recently, aging of the population and declining birthrate is progressing in the developed countries. Along with it, the number of stroke patients is expected to increase because of its high disease rate of the elderly, and rehabilitation system by using robot technology is being focused. In order to perform an effective rehabilitation, the system is desired to evaluate recovery state of the paralysis quantitatively. Because there are 2 types of paralysis symptoms, evaluation methods corresponding to each type are required. In this paper, the rehabilitation system which can evaluate each 2 types of symptoms is proposed. This system is intended to evaluate wide range of recovery state including acute stage and chronic stage. In addition, this system can be realized without force sensor. The experiments are performed by using systems with 2 degrees-of-freedom. The validity of proposed method is verified by experimental results.