Despite the large number of technology-based rehabilitative interventions proposed for the recovery of motor function after stroke, no approach currently explores how to identify and avoid the reinforcement of pathological muscular synergies, abnormal muscle activation and co-activation that patients often experience after stroke. MoRE MuSyC aims at defining a physiological-evidence-based global index to (i) quantitative assess the quality of the muscular pattern to ultimately identify pathological synergies, (ii) detect and monitor muscular pattern changes among consecutive rehabilitative training sessions. The outcomes of the project could strongly impact on the rehabilitation field by allowing the implementation of rehabilitative protocols that include real-time feedback to the patient if the muscular pattern is the right one for his motor function recovery.
The project takes place in the context of the technology-based approaches to support post-stroke motor rehabilitation of the upper limb. The expected results of the project, indeed, might be useful in designing new effective and efficient treatments based on physiological information coming from the muscular pattern of each patient. EMG information collected during rehabilitative tasks will be used to estimate a real-time physiological global index. In some ways, the project will increase the current opportunities to maximize the recovery in stroke patients since it will return more informative and quantitative monitoring of patients' states and improvements during the process of regaining motor abilities.
From a scientific perspective, the project will provide new myoelectric features to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the muscular activity after stroke, increasing the current knowledge in the field and promoting the development of customized rehabilitative strategies. The project could benefit from the contribution of other research groups of the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering known for their well-established experience and expertise in machine learning for the algorithm development step and, in view of the new rehabilitative device designing, in robotics for the development of the patient's feedback. Furthermore, the proponent's expertise and the new skills resulting from the project will expand the research field area of the bioengineering group, making from that side Sapienza more attractive for new multi-faceted national and international collaborations.
From a technical perspective, in an exploratory manner the global index defined in the proposal could be integrated in a tool (device) potentially usable by patients at home for evaluating by themselves the quality of muscular synergy. The intellectual property protection will be sought for this device, increasing the prestige of the proponent and the university.
From a clinical perspective, the research activity will provide a tool to monitor the recovery and the effectiveness of the therapy using the global index as measure for pathological synergies. Once the index has been defined to evaluate which synergy are considered pathological, the same index could be applied in the evaluation of efficacy of other rehabilitative treatments for the upper limb.