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Thesis

Title: Embedded Corrective Force Cueing: A force-feedback control design to optimize the motivating potential of robot-assisted therapy devices to increase bilateral functioning in hemiplegic stroke patients.

Abstract: This dissertation presents a new design method, Embedded Corrective Force Cueing (ECFC), a device-based stroke therapy method for motivating increased use of the impaired upper limb in bilateral tasks. This method aims to reduce upper limb physical dysfunction due to hemiplegia, a common disability affecting about 75% of stroke survivors. The ECFC strategy aims to create robotic and mechatronic therapy devices that provide powerfully motivating reasons for stroke survivors to use their impaired limb in activities of daily living requiring bilateral arm use. At the center of ECFC strategy is corrective force cueing, a novel use of force-feedback control that uses force cues to actively restrain the stronger unimpaired limb from compensating for impaired limb. This thesis hypothesizes that corrective force cues can increase the motivation of stroke survivors to use their impaired limb more when it is embedded into an activity that is both meaningful and purposeful to the stroke survivor and when it is implemented to dynamically create a functional need for the impaired limb in the activity. This control method builds on motivation and behavioral psychology principles found in promising stroke treatment techniques that have resulted in large functional improvements of the impaired arm. Reviewing the state of the art in robotic and mechatronic upper limb stroke therapy devices, this thesis provides quantitative and qualitative data to support the ECFC strategy as a valid design strategy for creating more functional and highly motivating devices. This thesis presents a framework of implementing five design principles, the literature supports as critical ingredients to motivate impaired arm use in activities of daily living.