News Archive

European Research Project helps stroke patients in Reading – University of Reading

Funding from the European Commission has enabled the Royal Berkshire & Battle Hospitals Trust to join forces with the University of Reading to run a unique £1.2million research project to improve rehabilitation of stroke patients. The hospital and university join a wide range of partners in the project from Ireland, Greece, Slovenia and the Netherlands to bring one of two therapy robots in Europe to patients in the area. A new robot called 'GENTLE/S' has been installed in Caversham Ward at Battle Hospital to help elderly stroke patients who have lost the function of an arm.

A stroke happens when the blood supply to the brain is disturbed in some way. As a result, brain cells are starved of oxygen causing some cells to die and leaving other cells damaged. No two strokes are the same and people can be affected in quite different ways. This partly depends on which area of the brain is damaged, because different parts control different abilities such as speaking, remembering, swallowing and moving.

The robot provides therapy for upper limbs by encouraging the patient through exercises on a PC tailored to their needs. Now that the robot is in place, trials will soon start for ten patients who will go through 27 sessions on the new GENTLE/S system. They are seated in front of a VDU screen and the arm they need to work on is placed inside a sling and attached to the newly designed 'HapticMaster' robot arm. The patient then performs simple 'reach and touch' tasks by following simple games or going through virtual reality tasks such as placing a drink on a table or putting a pan on the cooker.

Dr Christine Collin, Consultant in Neurology and Rehabilitation is delighted that the Trust has been selected as clinical collaborators in this project: "Now that the robot is in place, we look forward to putting the patients through the programme to monitor the results. It will be a real challenge for us as we are dealing with a completely new piece of equipment, but hope that once the trials are completed in 2003, we hope more patients can benefit from this kind of therapy."

William Harwin from the Department of Cybernetics at University of Reading said: "There is another GENTLE/S robot set up at Trinity College in Dublin, carrying out the same trial. In March 2003, we will merge the results from Dublin and from Battle Hospital in order to work on improving the robot further in order to make a product which could be sold across this country and abroad in order to help even more stroke patients' rehabilitation."

More information about the GENTLE/S project can be gained from www.gentle.reading.ac.uk

For further details, please contact Sue Rayner or Carol Derham on 0118 378 8004/5 Fax 0118 378 8924; or Nicola Sowden, Communications Officer, Royal Berkshire Hospital Tel: 0118 987 7421