An Irish dance rhythm therapy for people with Parkinson’s disease. A new multidisciplinary rehabilitation approach that uses a robot, an artificial intelligence platform and sensors for detecting vital and cognitive parameters. The project is called Si-Robotics and the system – developed by Exprivia – is now being tested at Irccs, the National Institute of Hospitalization and Care for the Elderly (Inrca) of Ancona.
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The robot teaches the steps of Irish dance: coordination movements of the lower and upper limbs and cross patterns (for example, arm and contralateral leg). The movements go in all directions, but always in a rhythmic and schematic way to reduce the risk of falling.
Randomized choreographies are also proposed, especially to work on the cognitive aspect and stimulate procedural memory: in each session the patient performs new movements and wears a T-shirt with a sensor that detects not only the performance parameters, but also the heart and respiratory rate. .
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Before starting the dance, the physiotherapist will prepare the patient through some warm-up and breathing exercises and, once the objectives to be achieved in the session have been established, the choreography and difficulty of the exercise will be chosen. The parameters collected by the system, in fact, are useful both for the system itself to propose new exercises based on the patient’s needs, and for the physiotherapist to personalize the rehabilitation and monitor its progress.
At the end of the game, the patient will carry out some cool-down exercises, always with the help of the specialist, and the robot will detect the parameters again to compare them with those recorded at the beginning of the session. “Our patients – he says Giovanni Riccardidirector of Uoc Rehabilitation Medicine of the IRCA – they had fun and the system allowed us to work on improving movements, collecting data for a more accurate and functional evaluation, with enormous benefits also on an emotional level “.
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