Robotic rehabilitation tasks and measurements of psychophysiological responses

Rehabilitation robots, together with vision and audio systems form the multimodal environment for exercising the person in a number of ways, unavoidably influencing the physiological state of the subject. This paper examines viability of measuring psycho physiological responses to different robotic tasks. The heart rate, skin conductance, respiration and peripheral skin temperature were observed to verify if physical activity obstructs useful recordings and to verify responses in stroke population. 30 healthy subjects were checked with a control task, a purely mental task and task with physical load. 23 subacute stroke persons did a control task, pick and place task (+ inverted version) and Stroop test, same as 22 healthy control subjects. Psycho physiological measurements yielded results even in the presence of physical load and can thus potentially be useful for rehabilitation robotics. Similar responses as in healthy control group were found in the stroke group. Skin conductance response frequency, respiratory rate, skin conductance and skin temperature (all changes from baseline) were confirmed as parameters signaling changes in arousal and valence of both, stroke and control groups.