Grasping virtual objects: A feasibility study for an enactive interface application in stroke

Recent studies show that 30% to 66% of patients who suffered a stroke are unable to recover the upper limb functionality and that most patients present motor disability five years after the acute event. Despite a general motor recovery the incapability to reach and grasp objects in the usual environment remains one of the most common disabilities after stroke. At the present time treatments for such impairments have been based on movement repetition of targeted tasks as part of training activities. Clinicians, however, are still looking for the possibility to provide a rehabilitation procedure that could match the natural and intuitive mode of interaction with objects that humans generally have in reaching and grasping in the daily contexts. In the last years the evolution of technologies appears to meet this request, notably with the growing of enactive interfaces. Such interfaces support the perception-action interactions with an environment allowing users to learn how to perform a useful action in a particular context. The expertise gained through the interaction with this multimodal interfaces results, in fact, in the acquisition of intuitive movements that is essentially based on subjective experience and on the perceptual consequences of their motor acts. The main aim of this work is to investigate the technical and clinical feasibility of using an enactive interface in the rehabilitation of reaching and grasping movements of upper-limb hemiparesis that occurred after stroke. In this study ischemic stroke patients will be requested to perform technology-enhanced grasping task at our rehabilitation center, in addition to usual physical therapy.