Stroke, Motivation & Rehabilitation Technology: Interim results

Last year at RAatE I presented my proposal to study the effect rehabilitation technology has on stroke patients motivation. This year I offer some results and interim conclusions.

As patients are discharged from primary care there is a need to address home rehabilitation issues such as low levels of clinical supervision, promoting errorless learning techniques, and low levels of self-motivation.  With approximately 300,000 people in England living with the long term effects of their stroke I wanted to explore stroke survivors experience of the care pathway, traditional rehabilitation and invite them to trial a specific piece of rehabilitation equipment, the SMART System.

It is my proposition that therapist views on this form of rehabilitation will determine the success or failure of rehabilitation technology development and implementation. Without therapist’s enthusiasm and belief in the efficacy of the equipment, this equipment will not be prescribed. But with so much research and development in the area of rehabilitation technology, how do therapist find out about the most effective devices? How do therapy lecturers decide what should be included in the curriculum and what will be obsolete by the time their undergraduates graduate?

Interim results suggest that therapist, while having a generally favourable view towards rehabilitation technology, believed funding for such equipment would prevent its wide spread use. The main issues for therapists were the reliability of the system being trialled and the quality of the interface as compared with commercially available products such as the Nintendo Wii. All therapist interviewed thought the use of such devices would have a motivating effect on some patients.

For lecturers’, overall impressions of the equipment were positive. Despite their general lack of knowledge and experience of this type of rehabilitation, the lecturers were keen to engage the system in a wider context, discussing its place within the rehabilitation pathway as well as identifying key factors regarding all users’ facilitation and suitability. They were keen for the equipment to be used as an adjunct to ongoing therapy or self-directed rehabilitation, but could not envisage it taking over the role of a therapist, face to face contact or hands on practice. They did identify key beneficial features, the immediate feedback the patient would receive, the data collection for use of patient assessment and reassessment and perhaps most pertinent for this research, that the system would engage and motivate patients.

Patient data collection and analysis continues.

 “It sounds like utopia in way, doesn’t it, you know?...It sounds like something that you dream of having, but technology hasn’t caught up with your own imagination”.

Author: Ruth Moore