Grant: Operating Grant

Fifty thousand Canadians each year have a stroke. Afterwards, most of them have problems with movement, sensation, vision or language after the stroke and require rehabilitation. Measurement of these problems and how badly a person has been affected by a stroke is very important. It determines what treatment they need and can predict how much they will recover. Unfortunately, the traditional clinical methods used to measure these things after stroke have many problems. They are crude and do no provide the information that patients, therapists and physicians need. Advances in robotic technology can significantly improve the situation. This project involves measuring problems with sensation after stroke using robots. Sensation is important for daily function and is often affected by a stroke. Yet, none of current assessment tools do a very good job of measuring it. We will develop new tools, using robotics to measure sensation and movement in stroke survivors. Further we will examine the brain areas responsible for causing problems with sensation by using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). This will give us a better understanding of what types of stroke have a better prognosis.