The Scottish Rite Hospital for Children organized summer camps for children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, in collaboration with Texas Woman’s University. The summer camps consisted of 60 hours of intervention over 10 days, based on Constrained-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT). The children, aged 5 to 15 years old, performed several activities wearing the constraint, including 30 min of ArmeoSpring Pediatric training per day. The children also worked on the transfer of unilateral skills to bimanual performance during specified times. The camp guide can be downloaded at https://twu.edu/occupational-therapy/Camp-Based-Augmented-CIMT-Guide/.

Children demonstrated clinically and statistically significant improvements in bimanual performance (AHA) and the COPM Performance and Satisfaction with performance. Improvement in unilateral function (MUUL) was statistically significant, but not clinically meaningful.

The ArmeoSpring exercises appeared to increase motivation and repetitions, and the adjustable assistance of the exoskeleton combined with the adjustable difficulty levels of the exercises allowed the shaping of each exercise to provide a “just right” challenge.

Link to original publication:

Roberts, H., at al. (2020). Constraint Induced Movement Therapy Camp for Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy Augmented by Use of an Exoskeleton to Play Games in Virtual Reality. Phys Occup Ther Pediatr:1-16.