Robot Therapist

Motivation

Neurological disorders are conditions caused by dysfunctions in the brain or nervous system, resulting in physical and/or psychological symptoms. Nearly 1 in 6 people worldwide suffer from a neurological disorder, with 15% of children in the US aged 3-17 years old affected by a neurodevelopmental disorder. Among individuals with neurological disorders, 77.4% experience weakness or loss of upper motor control. Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of motor disability in children, with a prevalence of approximately 1.5 to 4 per 1000 new infants worldwide and about 1 in 323 children in the United States diagnosed with CP.

Traditional therapy practices for neurological disorders have several limitations:

• Repetitive practice requires the continuous presence of a physical therapist.
• Not all populations can afford daily therapy.
• The progress is qualitatively evaluated, which may lack precision and objectivity.

SuperPop-NAO System

To address these limitations, we developed the SuperPop-NAO system (Lee et al., 2017) to improve rehabilitation efficacy. Our approach involves a 3-phase study designed to help users meet performance goals and assess the effects after the robot’s removal. This innovative method aims to increase intrinsic motivation, encouraging patients to achieve their performance goals more rapidly (Xu et al., 2018; De’Aira et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2023).