Search

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) provides a completely new output pathway and so, an additional possible way a person can express himself if he/she suffers from disorders like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brainstem stroke, brain or spinal cord injury, or other diseases which impair the function of the common output pathways which are responsible for the control of muscles or impair the muscles. Although most BCIs are thought to help people with disabilities, they are mainly tested on healthy, young subjects who may achieve better results than people with impairments. In this study we compare measurements, performed on 10 physically disabled people, to the results of a previous study, taken using 100 healthy participants. We prove that, under certain constraints, most patients are able to control a P300-based spelling device with almost the same accuracy as the healthy ones. Tuning parameters are discussed, as well as criteria for people who are not able to use this device.

Here an inertial sensor-based monitoring system for measuring and analyzing upper limb movements is presented. The final goal is the integration of this motion-tracking device within a portable rehabilitation system for brain injury patients. A set of four inertial sensors mounted on a special garment worn by the patient provides the quaternions representing the patient upper limb's orientation in space. A kinematic model is built to estimate 3D upper limb motion for accurate therapeutic evaluation. The human upper limb is represented as a kinematic chain of rigid bodies with three joints and six degrees of freedom. Validation of the system has been performed by co-registration of movements with a commercial optoelectronic tracking system. Successful results are shown that exhibit a high correlation among signals provided by both devices and obtained at the Institut Guttmann Neurorehabilitation Hospital.

This study aimed to investigate the cortical motor excitability characteristics in diffuse axonal injury (DAI) due to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). A variety of excitatory and inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) paradigms were applied to primary motor cortices of 17 patients and 11 healthy controls. The parameters of testing included resting motor threshold (MT), motor evoked potential (MEP) area under the curve, input-output curves, MEP variability, and silent period (SP) duration. The patient group overall revealed a higher MT, smaller MEP areas, and narrower recruitment curves compared to normal controls (p < 0.05). The alterations in excitability were more pronounced with an increase in DAI severity (p < 0.005) and the presence of motor impairment (p < 0.05), while co-existence of focal lesions did not affect the degree of MEP changes. MEP variability was significantly lower in the group with motor impairment only (p < 0.05). The intracortical inhibition, as revealed by SP duration, did not exhibit any significant differences in any of the patient groups. In conclusion, our findings expand the concept that impairment of the excitatory and inhibitory phenomena in the motor cortex does not proceed in parallel and demonstrate distinct patterns of aberrations in TBI. Furthermore, these data suggest that alterations in the corticospinal excitatory mechanisms are determined predominantly by the severity of DAI, and show a significant relationship with clinical motor dysfunction following severe trauma diffusely affecting the motor cortical connections. In severe TBI, motor and functional recovery might be linked to restitution of normal corticospinal mechanisms, indexed by normalization of the cortical excitability parameters.

We conducted a randomized controlled multicentre trial to investigate the feasibility of a telerehabilitation intervention for arm/hand function (the Home Care Activity Desk [HCAD] training) in a home setting. Usual care was compared to HCAD training. The hypothesis was that the clinical outcomes of the HCAD intervention would be at least the same as those measured after a period of usual care for patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and multiple sclerosis (MS) with respect to their arm/hand function. Eighty-one patients with affected arm/hand function resulting from either stroke, MS or TBI were recruited in Italy, Spain and Belgium; 11 were lost during follow-up (14%). The outcome measures were the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and the Nine Hole Peg Test (NHPT). There were no significant differences between the two groups on the outcome measures (ARAT and NHPT); in both groups, patients maintained or even improved their arm/hand function. The HCAD training was found to be as feasible as usual care in terms of clinical outcomes, and both therapists and patients were satisfied with the HCAD intervention. A telerehabilitation intervention using HCAD may increase the efficiency of care.