The Efficacy of Upper Limb Rehabilitation With Exoskeleton in Patients With Subacute Stroke.

Other illness

• unstable general clinical conditions;
• severe visual impairment;
• severe pain syndromes caused or intensified by rehabilitation with Armeo Power;
• patients who need isolation for infectious diseases ;
• epileptic disorder with frequent attacks that carry the risk of having a seizure during rehabilitation with Armeo Power;
• history of physical or neurological conditions that interfere with study procedures or assessment of motor function;

Other

• inability to maintain the sitting position;
• mild motor deficit of the arm (FM-UL\> 44) at baseline;
• recent botox injection in the upper limb or planned botox injection during the study period, including the follow-up;
• inability to don the orthosis on the impaired upper limb;
• bone instability in relevant areas of the upper extremity (unconsolidated fractures, fractures due to osteoporosis);
• fixed contractures involving the impaired upper limb (e.g. frozen shoulder);
• shoulder instability;
• interruption of treatment for 1 week, or 5 consecutive sessions;
• participation in other innovative treatment protocols for the upper limb rehabilitation (e.g. robotics, virtual reality, AOT ... etc).

• age between 18 and 85 years;
• first stroke with neurological outcomes affecting the upper limb;
• patients with severe or moderate hemiparesis (FM-UL≤44), stratified according to severe (FM-UL ≤ 22) or moderate (22 \<FM-UL ≤ 44) motor deficit;
• patients in the sub-acute phase within 90 days of the acute event, stratified by the distance from the acute event (OAI≤30; OAI\> 30);
• Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) of the main components (shoulder, elbow, and wrist) of the upper limb \<3;
• sufficient cognitive and linguistic level to understand the instructions and provide consent;
• signed informed consent.