Rehabilitation with robotic exoskeletons has been shown to help patients with neurological disabilities such as stroke and spinal cord injury regain their ability to walk again. But they can be expensive and complex to use. We investigated the application of this technology across the continuum of rehabilitation care – from acute rehabilitation in the hospitals, to day rehabilitation centres in the community and nursing homes. The study involved 6 organizations across 8 sites.  We wanted to see if this technology is feasible in these various settings and whether they resulted in better patient outcomes.

Efficient and effective gait and movement patterns are essential for us to fulfill our daily tasks. Early detection of deterioration of movement patterns can help to trigger early interventions to prevent further decline, while progress at rehabilitation can be accurately tracked to monitor effectiveness of interventions. The most widely used method for movement analysis in clinical practice is currently qualitative analysis. We aim to build a vision-based gait analysis system that clinicians can use conveniently to quantify changes in movement pattern over time.

Feedback on performance is an essential component of motor learning. Neurofeedback in the form of EEG brain activity and EMG muscle activity has emerged as effective interventions for enhancing performance in healthy individuals and stroke survivors. We aim to investigate the effectiveness of applying additional SynPhNe EEG/EMG neurofeedback training outside of therapy time, to enhance motor recovery after stroke.

Noninvasive brain stimulation, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation, have been shown to change the excitability of neurons. These techniques have been used in an attempt to influence neuroplasticity after stroke to enhance recovery. However, neural networks do not all recover in the same way after stroke, and this would influence how we attempt to modulate brain activity to enhance recovery. In this study, seek to follow changes in the neural network using MRI, EEG, and transcranial magnetic stimulation correlated with clinical measures, through the course of post-stroke recovery, and to examine the response to different montages of transcranial direct current stimulation.

This is a qualitative study of user experience of patients and physiotherapists after using the robotic exoskeleton for rehabilitation.

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We performed a preliminary study of the effect of wearable exoskeleton use on mobility function in adolescents with cerebral palsy.

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We examine the effect of different montages of transcranial direct current stimulation on motor recovery in chronic stroke survivors.