Rehabilitation Based on Hybrid Neuroprosthesis (ReHyb)

Rehabilitation Based on Hybrid Neuroprosthesis: Evaluation of the Feasibility, Functionality and Usability of the System in a Post-stroke Patient Population.

The study is a pilot, multi-center, prospective, and open study to test feasibility, functionality and usability of a device defined as a hybrid neuroprosthesis.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Post Stroke
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: ReHyb-HPP; Device: ReHyb-LPP

Detailed Description

The ReHyb project, being oriented towards the development of a hybrid, modular, flexible and patient-specific upper-body hybrid neuro-prosthesis, potentially able to maximize the training efficacy during hospital stay as well as home-based rehabilitation or assistance during Activities of Daily Living (ADL), offering at the same time a pleasant user experience, has led to the development and integration of different modules in an attempt to adapt to the specific conditions of different patients. This goal has oriented the Consortium toward a participatory design (PD) and an ethics-by-design approach (EbD) that has been applied all along the execution of the project.

Under this perspective, two platforms have been developed and evaluated according to the following:

- Evaluation of platforms: The global evaluation of the ReHyb system and its two developed platforms, High Power Platform (HPP) and Low Power Platform (LPP). To meet this goal, a pilot, multicenter, prospective, and open study was defined to test feasibility, functionality and usability of the two platforms that constitute the hybrid neuro-prosthesis developed. A total of 24 post-stroke patients (12 per clinical site) were recruited during a time-span of 12 months for the evaluation of the ReHyb system. This number was considered sufficient for the statistical analysis to investigate the feasibility and usability of the platforms. Furthermore, the sample size is expected to allow for finding most of the usability problems.

When evaluating the ReHyb platforms in full and in their different module combinations, the ReHyb project has incorporated two different hardware devices: a stationary high powered device (ReHyb-HP) and a portable spring-loaded device (ReHyb-SL), which are both integrated with FES support. The software components include the control algorithms of the platforms, a training environment (e.g., the Rehabilitations Gaming System (RGS), a desktop Virtual Reality (VR) setup with gamified protocols for motor and cognitive rehabilitation), and the Digital Twin (e.g., the level of task difficulty and the amount of support will be adapted to the capabilities of the user).

The general scope of the studies herein presented is about evaluating the developed ReHyb System regarding its feasibility, functionality and usability rather than about evaluating any therapeutic effect of using the device. As a consequence, with a maximum duration of 3 weeks and five sessions of training per subject, the study participation is probably not long enough to expect therapeutic effects induced by the hybrid training. In fact, in previous studies, a minimum of four to seven weeks of intervention was required to detect significant clinical improvements in upper limb functions.

The applied clinical investigation protocol (CIP) was the same for the two clinical rehabilitation centres namely: Schön Klinik (SK) and VALDUCE. Nevertheless, some minimal differences were registered between the two centres without major impact on the results obtained, but with interesting complementary information coming from some of the main stakeholders on the use of the new integrated devices. In particular, SK has included the evaluation made by healthcare operators and caregivers, who have been considered the closest stakeholders to patients involved in the study.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 24
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Germany
  • Bad Aibling, Germany, 83043
    • Schon Klinik
• Italy
  • Lecco
    • Costa Masnaga, Lecco, Italy, 23845
      • Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults (women or men aged ≥ 18 years)
• with a diagnosis of stroke either hemorrhagic or ischemic
• with a hemiparesis of the upper limb (0 ≤ MRC ≤ 4)
• in sub-acute (up to six months after acute event) or chronic condition (more than 6 months from the acute event).
• Able to sit upright for the duration of the test.
• Subjects with a level of cognitive capacity that enables him/her to follow the instructions related to the performance of exercises.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Subjects with a high level of spasticity (Modified Ashworth Scale: In general >3 except for motorized joints which may be >2)
• Pain in the affected upper limb (Numeric Rating Scale > 4)
• Severe psychiatric disorder
• Permanent neurological symptoms present immediately before stroke
• Physical conditions that can alter normal biomechanics (e.g., recent sprains or injuries, etc.)
• Pregnant or nursing women
• No written informed consent from the patient or the legal representative
• Active implantable devices (e.g., pacemaker)
• Unstable medical condition

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Device Feasibility
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Rehyb Device: High-Powered Platform; Patients with lower residual mobility were assigned to the High-Powered platform (ReHyb-HPP). Patients assigned to ReHyb-HPP received upper limb mobilization, with active assistance, and Functional Electrical Stimulation.	Device: ReHyb-HPP; Up to 7 sessions lasting approximately 60 minutes will be carried out, including dressing and undressing the exoskeleton and/or electrodes. At the end of the third and fifth training sessions, some questionnaires will be administered. At the end of each training session, the patient's adherence to the selected platform configuration will be reassessed and modified as appropriate to ensure the subject's comfort and, at the same time, to evaluate the platform's adaptability to the subject's specific conditions. Together with Functional electrical stimulation, patients received active assistance during predefined repetitive movements of the upper limb playing a single game.
Experimental: ReHyb Device: Low-Powered Platform; Patients with higher residual mobility were assigned to the Low-Powered platform (ReHyb-LPP). Patients assigned to ReHyb-LPP received upper limb mobilization, with passive assistance, and Functional Electrical Stimulation.	Device: ReHyb-LPP; Up to 7 sessions lasting approximately 60 minutes will be carried out, including dressing and undressing the exoskeleton and/or electrodes. At the end of the third and fifth training sessions, some questionnaires will be administered. At the end of each training session, the patient's adherence to the selected platform configuration will be reassessed and modified as appropriate to ensure the subject's comfort and, at the same time, to evaluate the platform's adaptability to the subject's specific conditions. Together with Functional electrical stimulation, patients received passive assistance only at the shoulder level, during unstructured movements of the upper limb playing games with adaptive difficulty.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of adverse Events	Safety of the delivered treatment is assessed monitoring the number of Adverse Event (AE). The metric is the number of events.	from enrollment to end of treatment (up to 2 weeks).
Usability	Usability is assessed with donning and doffing time (measured in minutes).	Throughout the delivered treatment (up to 2 weeks).
Feasibility score	Feasibility score is assessed by means of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology questionnaire (UTAUT, 1-7on a likert scale per each item),	Day3 and Day5
Usability	Perceived Usability of the device from the patients perspective. Assessed with System Usability Scale (SUS) scale questionnaire. The scale ranges from 0-100.	Day 6
Feasibility score	Feasibility score of the treatment is assessed through Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI, 1-7 on a likert scale per each item)	Day 3 and Day 5
Usability	Usability from the patient's perspective i evaluated with the Flow State Scale (FSS, 1-7 on a likert scale per each item)	Day 3 and Day 5
Feasibiliy	Feasibiliy is evaluated with the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ, -3 to 3 on a likert scale per each item) - short.	Day 3 and Day 5
Usability	Perceived physical and cognitive fatigue were assessed with NASA-Task Load index (NASA-TLX). The scale ranges from 0-100.	Day 6
Usability	Patient satisfaction with the device was assessed with Outcome of Prosthesis Use Survey (OPUS). The scale ranges from 0-100.	Day 6

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Assistive Torques	Functionality of the platform is assessed with performance of the designed assistive algorithms, and their correct functioning, namely average torques provided (measured in Nm) across sessions.	From enrollment to the end of treatment (up to two weeks)
Assistance Stimulation currents	Functionality of the platform is assessed with performance of the designed assistive algorithms, and their correct functioning, namely , average stimulation currents (measured in mA) across session.	Throughout the delivered therapy (up to two weeks).

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center
• Collaborators: Imperial College London; Technical University of Munich; Technical University of Denmark; Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa; Schoen Clinic Bad Aibling; Tecnalia; Radboud University, The Netherlands; IUVO S.r.l.; Össur Iceland ehf
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Franco Molteni, Medical Doctor, Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center; Principal Investigator: Klaus Jahn, Medical Doctor, Schon Klinik Bad Aibling

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 12, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 24, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): May 24, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 12, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 25, 2025
• First Posted (Estimated): December 8, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 22, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 15, 2025
• Last Verified: December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Rehabilitation; Exoskeleton; Hybrid; post stroke; Robobotics
• Other Study ID Numbers: 871767

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No