Quantitative EEG for predicting upper limb motor recovery in chronic stroke robot-Assisted rehabilitation

Stroke is a leading cause for adult disability, which in many cases causes motor deficits. Despite the developments in motor rehabilitation techniques, recovery of upper limb functions after stroke is limited and heterogeneous in terms of outcomes, and knowledge of important factors that may affect the outcome of the therapy is necessary tomake a reasonable prediction for individual patients. In this paper, we assessed the relationship between quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG) measures and the motor outcome in chronic stroke patients that underwent a robot-Assisted rehabilitation program to evaluate the utility ofQEEG indices to predictmotor recovery. For this purpose, we acquired resting-state electroencephalographic signals fromwhich the power ratio index (PRI), delta/alpha ratio, and brain symmetry index were calculated. The outcome of the motor rehabilitationwas evaluated using upper limb section of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment. We found that PRI was significantly correlatedwith themotor recovery, suggesting that this indexmay provide useful information to predict the rehabilitation outcome. Index Terms-Chronic stroke, robot-Assisted rehabilitation, quantitative electroencephalography(QEEG), outcome prediction.