Upper limb functional impairment is one of the major limiting factors for independent daily living of stroke survivors. Sensory inputs during motor training may be an important triggering signal that promotes the reorganization of the central nervous system. The goal of this proposed study is to develop a novel robot-aided motor training with sensory enhancement for functional recovery of upper limb of stroke survivors. The investigators will develop a sensory-enhanced robot-aided motor training program to facilitate sensory inputs with motor training for stroke survivors. A newly developed biomedical engineering technique that uses noise signal to improve detection threshold of sensory system will be used to enhance cutaneous sensation of the patient's hand during robot-aided motor training. This technique is based on a concept of stochastic resonance (SR) that has been demonstrated experimentally in a wide variety of neurophysiological and perceptual systems. Forty stroke patients recruited for the proposed study will be randomly assigned to a study and a control group. Subjects in the study group will participate in a robot-aided motor training program with enhanced cutaneous sensory inputs. Subjects in the control group will receive the same robot-aided training, but without enhanced sensory inputs. Evaluation of training effect includes clinical evaluation scale (Motor Status Score for shoulder and elbow), quantitative upper limb sensory assessment, and quantitative upper limb motor function test. Findings of the proposed study may help basic scientists to better understand the mechanism of motor recovery through repeated exercises and sensory feedback.
