Main Projects
fMRI and Robot-Assisted Practice of Activities of Daily Living
The goal of this project is to assess short-term functional gains after practice of skilled reaching and grasping tasks, quantify the neuronal changes associated with short-term gains, and identify trends across high and low responders in terms of patterns of change in cortical activity and white matter connectivity.
Funding: National Institute of Health
Robot-Assisted Motivating Rehabilitation to Increase Upper Limb Function after Stroke
The increasing numbers of persons at risk in the population for stroke creates an increased need for therapy programs that can be effectively administered in both home and outpatient clinics. The aim of this work is to create a low cost, commercially-viable, home-based rehabilitation system that can capitalize on computer-assisted motivating rehabilitation concepts of game therapy and skill training with functional training related to real activity to induce user-dependent CNS spasticity.
Funding: American Heart Association
Gender Differences on Robot-Assisted Stroke Rehabilitation
The goal is to study how robot-assisted rehabilitation training after stroke affects the functional ability, and motor impairment levels of women versus men.
Funding: Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation
ADL-Specific Robot Therapy Environment for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation
The potential of robotic technology to change lives and positively contribute to advancing scientific knowledge in medical field is being proven more and more in our medical centers across the nation and the world. The immediate aim of this project is to develop and evaluate a prototype robotic therapy environment that capitalize on state of the art robotic technology to study, retrain and assess upper extremity dysfunction due to stroke.
Funding: Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin
Self-Care Assessment
This study quantifies natural movement during basic ADL tasks and quantify differences in movement performance between persons with and without stroke. Changes are being assessed using both clinical and biomechanical measures. Our long-term research agenda involves developing reliable kinematic and dynamic functional assessment methods for upper extremity (UE) functional performance in the SCI population that capitalizes on three-dimensional (3-D) motion analysis and robotic technology.