Development of a Virtual Robot Rehabilitation Training System for Children with Cerebral Palsy: An Observational Study

This paper presents the development of a robotic system for the rehabilitation and quality of life improvement of children with cerebral palsy (CP). The system consists of four modules and is based on a virtual humanoid robot that is meant to motivate and encourage children in their rehabilitation programs. The efficiency of the developed system was tested on two children with CP. The effect of using the robot is an increase in the number of exercise repetitions, as well as the time spent on therapy, developing and strengthening the child's musculature. Additionally, the children are able to produce socially acceptable gestures in the context of non-verbal communication for socialization. The main advantages of this system are its flexibility and ease of use. Besides the proposed use in CP rehabilitation, this system can be used in the rehabilitation of people recovering from surgery or injuries. Use of the proposed system significantly decreases the work load of the therapist who would be conducting the repetitive motion, allowing the therapist to see an increased number of patients. In the future, the number of different movements the robot is able to perform will be increased by way of domain-specific modelling and language.