Background

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the UK, with 77% of stroke survivors encountering upper limb weakness. The current standard rehabilitation for stroke patients relies on three months of physiotherapy conducted at the hospital to help limbs with muscle weakness, and is not effective for the majority of patients.

TeleRegain is a telerehabilitation platform that is capable of delivering stroke rehabilitation for the arm and hand in the comfort of the patient’s own home. It connects the patient’s brain signals with a muscle stimulator, helping patients to control their upper limbs and restore signal pathways between the brain and the body.

Technology Overview

This technology couples the patient’s brain signals when they intend to move their arm with activation of the weak muscles which assists patients to control their upper limbs and restore signal pathways between the brain and the body.

The home-based telerehabilitation platform comprises of 3 aspects:

A brain-computer interface system that can read and translate signals sent by the brain.
A functional electrical stimulator that stimulates nerves by sending small electrical impulses to help activate weak muscles.
Advanced machine learning algorithms which significantly reduce the cost, set up complexity and calibration time when compared to similar technologies.

Benefits

More effective treatment - when compared with physiotherapy alone.
Improving patients’ lives - improving the day to day activities of people with stroke, allowing them to become more independent.
Remote rehabilitation - allowing patients to continue rehabilitation away from the hospital saving transport costs and time for the patient.
Reduced complexity of set up - by limiting the electrodes required for the hardware the system is much easier to set up, and can be done without the physical presence of medical staff.
Reduced calibration time - through machine learning the calibration is reduced by 80% compared with similar technologies.

Applications

This system has been developed to facilitate rehabilitation for people encountering upper limb weakness due to stroke, and will be extended to include other neurological conditions causing lower limb weakness in the future.

TeleRegain: Accelerating Hand Rehabilitation from Home

IP Status

Seeking