Blank, Amy A.French, James A.Pehlivan, Ali UtkuO'Malley, Marcia K.2014-07-312014-07-312014Blank, Amy A., French, James A., Pehlivan, Ali Utku, et al.. "Current trends in robot-assisted upper-limb stroke rehabilitation: promoting patient engagement in therapy." <i>Current Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Reports,</i> 2, no. 3 (2014) Springer: 184-195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40141-014-0056-z.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/76316Stroke is one of the leading causes of long-term disability today; therefore, many research efforts are focused on designing maximally effective and efficient treatment methods. In particular, robotic stroke rehabilitation has received significant attention for upper-limb therapy due to its ability to provide high-intensity repetitive movement therapy with less effort than would be required for traditional methods. Recent research has focused on increasing patient engagement in therapy, which has been shown to be important for inducing neural plasticity to facilitate recovery. Robotic therapy devices enable unique methods for promoting patient engagement by providing assistance only as needed and by detecting patient movement intent to drive to the device. Use of these methods has demonstrated improvements in functional outcomes, but careful comparisons between methods remain to be done. Future work should include controlled clinical trials and comparisons of effectiveness of different methods for patients with different abilities and needs in order to inform future development of patient-specific therapeutic protocols.engThis is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Springer.Journal articlerobotic stroke rehabilitationupper-limb rehabilitationpatient engagementassist-as-neededintent to movehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40141-014-0056-z