1. Abracadabra
Robotics Friend For
Physiotherapy After Stroke
Dr. Marina Fridin, CTO
May I help
you?
You? Really?
Engineering Conference, Novel
Technology for people with special needs,
Ruppin Academic Center, 2014

2. Definition of Stroke
• Sudden brain damage
• Lack of blood flow to the brain caused by a
clot or rupture of a blood vessel
Ischemic = Clot
(makes up approximately
87% of all strokes)
Hemorrhagic = Bleed
- Bleeding around brain
- Bleeding into brain
Embolic Thrombotic

3. Social Assistive Robotics (SAR),
scientific concept
- SAR is the class of robots that provide various types of
assistance to various vulnerable populations primarily through
social, rather than physical interaction.
• POPULATIONS:
– Elderly:
• Post- stroke rehabilitation, Matarić, et al., 2007
• Alzheimer’s disease , Tapus et..al. ,2009
• Hospital delivery robot, Mutlu & Forlizzi ,2008
• Nursing home residents , Wada et.al. , 2004
– Children, mainly for children with autism spectrum
disorders (ASD)
• Scassellati, et al. 2007.
• Robins, et al., 2005.

4. Factors that influence recovery
following a stroke
Abracadabra can not
influence
Abracadabra could
influence
• Time passed before medical intervention
is initiated
• What part of the brain was affected
• The size of the area affected
• The patient’s age
• The patient’s fitness level before the
stroke
• Patient’s premorbid cognitive level
• Additional medical problems
•Patient’s emotional state/motivation
level
•Family support
•Environmental and social influences
•Time passed since stroke occurred
•Amount of therapy received
(especially in the first 12 months)
! Each stroke is different therefore it is difficult to predict the
amount of recovery that will occur in the affected side.

5. Principles of design Stroke Rehabilitation
Procedure of Abracadabra
Interdisciplinary Team participate in the
design and implementation of the system
Uses Learning Theory:
– Graded Levels of Task Difficulty
– Opportunities for Repetition of Skill
Performance
– Professional Supervision and Feedback
– “Protected Practice”

6. Examples of Stroke Rehabilitation Interventions
ABRACADABRA could participate
Functional Skills Training
− Personal Care Skills
− Mobility Activities
− Instrumental Activities of Daily Living
Therapeutic Exercises
− Flexibility
− Strength
− Coordination
− Fitness
Visual fields – treatment
− Increase awareness
− Compensatory oculomotor strategies
− Audio-visual stimulation
− Compensatory head movement
− Reading and writing
Speech therapy
− Communication/language
− Speech
− Voice Quality
− Fluency (stuttering)
− Cognition/neglect
− Swallowing
Cognition
− Orientation (who, when, where, why)
− Attention
− Memory (usually with immediate or sho
term memory)
− Problem solving
− Reasoning
− Insight/safety awareness

7. The system
• 2 versions of the robot: fully functional
and restricted
• Virtual version of the robot
• Connected Devices, including sensory
system for colleting of the patient data
(motor/cognitive performances etc.)
• Connections to the therapeutically
devices (including Virtual Reality and
computer games)
• Computer-based system for rehabilitation
team ( including reports of patient
progress, definition of the tasks ect.)

8. Abracadabra for different
Rehabilitation Services
 The robot with full functionality:
 Rehabilitation unit in the hospital
 Home with outpatient therapy
 Long-term care facility
 Community-based programs
 Restricted version of the robot or it’s virtual
agent
Home-bound therapy (tele-medicine)

9. Hello Darling, how are you today?
I can not get it? Could you move it
more forward for me?
Motor Actions:
Example
Hello Robot!
Patient Personal
Information
Task Definition
Robot Activation
I am so parched, could you please
give a cup of water?
Report Next
Task
Emotional Status
Performance

10. Motor learning approach
- Based on the principles of
• Repetition
• Adaptation
• Appropriate feedback
• Random practice and
• Enriched environment
Particularly adjusted
to the learning stage
and task component

11. Skill acquisition
The patient: Who? The task: What? The context: Where?
Age
Experience
Motivation
Memory
Ability
Discrete/Serial/Cont.
Closed/Open
Gross/Fine
Accuracy kind
Program/Plan
Clinical
Home
Presence of others
Task variability
Stage of learning
Preparation Presentation Structure
Goals
Transfer
Context
Performance
measures
Instructions
Demonstration
Guidance
Simulators
Part practice
Mental practice
Random/Blocked
Random/Varied
Massed/Distributed
Feedback
KR/KP
Descript./Prescript
Type of feedback
Amount
Frequency

12. ABRACADABRA
Body Structure & Functions Activity Participation
Environmental
Factors
Personal
Factors
Therapist Abracadabra
Health condition (disorder or disease)
Hands on
Conceptual Interference
Environment Taxonomy
Learning Algorithm
Hands off
Human-Robot Interaction
Motor GamesMotor Actions
Adaptation to personality, mood and motor performance
Motivation: feedback, mirroring effect
Team Decomposition

13. The scheme of the ABRACADABRA
modules and data flow
Low-level Perception
• Kinect: Motion processing
• Robot’s Video:
High color saturation filters
Skin-color filters
Edge detection
Disparity computation
• Robot’s Sensors: Data filtering
Motor module
• Visual-motor skills
• Manipulation skills (reaching/ grasping)
• Expressive skills (bodily/facial/vocalizations)
Attention module
• Attention on a child with fastest/slowest reactions
• Attention on a child defined by physiotherapist
Motivation module
• Positive-negative reinforcement
• Qualitive and quantative feedback
• Empathy and mirroring effect
Behavior module
• Behavior selection
• Decomposition to the set of
operations: body movements,
operational vocabulary,
sounds, emotional
expressions
High-level Perception
• Visual:
Scene analysis and segmentation
Face and eye detection
Whole body labeling
Subjects identification
Gaze direction
Emotional Recognition
• Kinect: Extremities movement analysis
• Sensory Data fusion
Adaptation module
• Adjustment to the stage of motor learning
• Mood and current success level
• Personality matching: hyperactive/passive
Information analysis module
• Subject’s motor behavior analysis
• Subject’s cognitive behavior analysis
• Monitoring of the level of interaction strength
• Recognition of subjects attention state
Input
• Robot: Sensors data, including Scene video
• Kinect: Movement tracking
• Physiotherapist: Settings
Personal and Anthropometric data
Functional (pathological) restrictions
Tasks difficulty
Session scenario components
Safety module
• Avoid children in robot’s working space
Databas
e
Self-awareness module
• Error detection/Success measuring
Locomotion, Falling, Manipulation
• Robot localization
Personal Information
Pathology characteristics: GMFCS,
Altered side, Assistive device
Motor functions : Time of sit-stand
initiation, Symmetry of holding arms
Child-Robot Interaction Measurements:
Emotional status, Responsiveness
Environment: Place, # participants

14. Conclusions
● Every person is different and no one can be sure how quickly or how far you
or your family member will progress.
● Rehab is often a long process.
● Complete recovery is not always possible, however, living an enjoyable life
is still within reach.
● ABRACADABRA is feasible and promising , a new research area of social
assistive technology with immeasurable potential
● Assistive robotic platforms can be used in the near future in hospitals and
homes, in training and therapeutic programs that monitor, encourage, and
assist their users
● ABRACADABRA may stimulate the development of new treatments for a
wide variety of diseases and disorders through effective physiotherapy
practice