Assessment Capacity of the Armeo® Power: Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

The use of robotics in rehabilitating motor functions has increased exponentially in recent decades. One of the most used robotic tools is undoubtedly the Armeo® Power, which has proved to have excellent qualities as a rehabilitation tool. However, none of these studies has investigated the ability of Armeo® Power to assess the upper limb by correlating the data resulting from the software with patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). The present study aims to evaluate the variability between the standardized PROMs, Stroke Upper Limb Capacity Scale (SULCS), Fugl–Meyer upper limb assessment (FMA-UL), and the Armeo® Power measurements. To evaluate the correlation between SULCS and FMA-UL and the strength and joint assessments obtained with the Armeo® Power, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. A total of 102 stroke survivors were included in this cross-sectional study, and all participants finished the study. The results showed many statistically significant correlations between PROM items and Armeo® Power data. In conclusion, from this study, it can be stated that Armeo® Power, based on the analysis of the data collected, can be an objective evaluation tool, which can be combined with the operator-employee traditional evaluation techniques, especially when compared to a patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).