State of the art and Efficency of robotic therapy in upper limb rehabilitation a literature review

Stroke represents the main cause of disability in adults. The disability is caused by motor or sensitive impairment, loss of interjoint coordination, spasticity and patological synergies that occur after stroke. The new directions in motor rehabilitation point at facilitating neuroplasticity by multimodal stimulation, like virtual reality, or by active assistance in task specifi c training, like rehabilitation robots associated or not with functional electrical stimulation (FES). The aim of this article is on one hand, to analize the way in which the existing robots face the biomechanical chalenges of modeling the upper limb`s movements and on the other hand, to evaluate the effi cency of robotics in rehabilitation, by pointing out the results of the existing clinical trials. Finally, possible directions for future research are discussed.