INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana children's hospital is using robots to help youngsters with cerebral palsy and other movement disorders improve the use of their arms and legs.
Riley Hospital for Children's new interactive Robotic Rehabilitation Center uses two robots to help therapists measure a child's strengths and weaknesses to better tailor therapy.
Center officials say robotic therapy, often used in adult stroke patients, can help children with cerebral palsy or traumatic brain injuries.
"You're reprogramming the brain," Dr. Greg Wilson, co-director of the center and a developmental pediatrician at Riley, told The Indianapolis Star. "It's very similar to what therapists have been doing for a long time, but this is a great new tool for them."
The center is the first in Indiana focused on robotic therapy for children. Similar therapy is available in Chicago and Cincinnati, but those sites often have waiting lists.
The Riley center features a $370,000 robot focused on lower extremities and a $140,000 robot that focuses on upper extremities. The center also uses computerized motion analysis.
Wilson said a study of robotic therapy use in children showed a 20 percent to 33 percent improvement in gait and walking.
Susie Good of West Lafayette, Ind., hopes the robotic therapy helps her daughter, Anna, walk better.
Anna, 6, has cerebral palsy and tends not to bend her knees when she walks, Good said.
"We're hoping that this is going to help and force her to bend her knees more," she said.
The robots turn Anna's legs in a walking motion in a therapy designed to help her form the connections between her legs and brain.
So far, she's used the robot about 10 times.
"It's kind of boring," Anna said.
