Effectiveness of Robotic Devices for Medical Rehabilitation: An Umbrella Review

This umbrella review aimed to evaluate the comprehensive effectiveness of robot-assisted training (RT) or robotic devices for medical rehabilitation, focusing on five areas: number of systematic reviews (SRs), randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and participants studied for each disease; quality of SRs for each disease; types of robotic devices used for each disease; outcome measures used in SRs for each disease; and effectiveness of RT for each outcome measure. The study found that robotic devices are useful for improving impairments and disabilities in several diseases, particularly stroke. Upper-limb devices were effective for motor control and activities of daily living, and lower-limb devices for walking independence in stroke patients. The review highlights the need for further high-quality systematic reviews, including randomized controlled trials with large sample sizes and meta-analyses, especially focusing on non-stroke-related diseases. Further research should also identify the most effective type of robotic device for improving specific impairments or disabilities.

• 1
  Stroke was the most frequently reported disease in the included systematic reviews (40 SRs), followed by spinal cord injury (8 SRs), multiple sclerosis (4 SRs), cerebral palsy (4 SRs), Parkinson’s disease (3 SRs), and neurological disease (3 SRs).
• 2
  After removing duplicates, 341 RCTs were included in SRs involving 14,522 participants. With respect to stroke, 126 RCTs (5999 participants) focused on upper-limb devices, whereas 121 RCTs (5030 participants) focused on lower-limb devices.
• 3
  Robotic devices are useful for improving impairments and disabilities in several diseases. Further high-quality SRs including RCTs with large sample sizes and meta-analyses of these RCTs, particularly on non-stroke-related diseases, are required.