![]() ![]() Participants were recruited at the Reina Sofía University Hospital in Cordoba, Spain. In this case, due to the heterogeneity of the study population, it was decided to recruit 12 patients at different stages of post-stroke upper limb recovery, in order to test as many system features as possible. According to Nielsen, between three and five users can identify 85% of the most relevant usability problems. In order to detect most problems of usability which can affect a product, Jakob Nielsen’s theory regarding the sufficient number of users to evaluate a system is widely accepted. The research carried out also aims to demonstrate the feasibility of including the robotic therapy as a complement to a regular daily rehabilitation program. In this study, we evaluate the ease to use, consistency and acceptance of the system have been evaluated. The purpose of this manuscript is to present the usability validation of MERLIN system. The system is composed of an upper-limb rehabilitation robot and a software platform which guides and measures the patient’s movements and allows physicians to customize the therapeutic plan and to monitor the patients’ evolution. It is presented as an affordable and easy to use solution to allow the patient to carry out an intensive rehabilitation at home, with a continuous remote monitoring and communication with the therapist. MERLIN is a robotic system based on serious games for the upper limb tele rehabilitation in patients with a stroke. The enjoyment patients derive from playing these so called ‘serious games’, designed specifically for the rehabilitation tasks, can greatly increase the quality and quantity of the therapy delivered. What is more, the combination of game-based telerehabilitation and robotic systems creates a motivating, engaging environment for patients. On the other hand, home-based telerehabilitation allows us to extend institutional rehabilitation by increasing and prolonging the therapy. ![]() Robot-based neurorehabilitation systems provide a solution to increase the number of movements, involve safe, intensive rehabilitation exercises and have the advantage that the precise movements of the robot are able to measure the patients’ movements objectively. At a time when the rehabilitation services resources are unable to meet the demand, robot-assisted rehabilitation and home-based telerehabilitation are gaining greater acceptance. However, the increase in the number of people affected and the current limitation of health resources make it very difficult to provide services using a traditional approach.Ĭontinuous advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology are transforming stroke rehabilitation. Nowadays, the key aspects to make rehabilitation effective for people with stroke are considered to be intensity, repetition and using suitably challenging and function-oriented activities. The paralysis of the upper limbs is a common impairment after strokes, and only 10–20% of patients recover completely : for these patients, the main aim of arm rehabilitation is to recover lost functions. The prevalence of people living with the effects of stroke has increased over the last few years, thus creating a higher demand for rehabilitation services. Strokes are among the leading causes of death, physical disability and economic burden worldwide. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
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