Rehabilitation of stroke patients with sensor-based systems

Stroke is one of the leading causes of long-term disability. A unilateral motor deficit is one of the main symptoms early after stroke and around 40% of the patients have a continued motor deficit in the chronic stage. This deficit limits the patients’ functionality and engagement in social life. Patients receive rehabilitation services in order to minimize their disabilities. The focus of the current thesis is the application of sensor-based technologies in stroke rehabilitation. To monitor stroke patients, a sensor-based system was developed to explore parallels between clinical assessments and measures in daily-life. By using a full body sensor-suit, it was shown that clinical assessments did not reflect the patients’ behaviour in daily life. To treat disabilities after stroke, different sensor-based therapy systems were developed and evaluated. The sensor-based therapies included coaching in daily life and structured exercises for interventions in the patients’ home. The acceptance using sensor-based interventions was high in the mild-moderate affected stroke patients. As such, sensor-based technologies allow measuring stroke patients’ performance and facilitate the integration of therapy into stroke patients’ daily lives. Nevertheless, the presented and tested sensor-based methods need to be further investigated in terms of efficacy as well as the carryover of gains achieved in clinics to the stroke patients’ daily lives