# Project 9: Using Socially Assistive Robot Assistants to Augment NeuroRehabilitation Exercise Therapy

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO · 2020 · $319

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT 
Using Socially Assistive Robot Assistants to Augment NeuroRehabilitation Exercise Therapy 
Robots have the potential to tremendously impact the standard of care and improve the lives of patients and 
the working situation of existing caregivers. Socially Assistive Robotics, or robots used to help people through 
social, rather than physical, interaction has the potential to benefit several communities. In particular, the 
repetitive nature of neurorehabilitation for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)/stroke provides an ideal application 
domain for the use of a robot in care settings. The long-term goal of this research is to develop an effective 
care agent for neurorehabilitation for patients with TBI/stroke. This research will greatly advance the field 
through the engineering development and the community engagement required to move this research from the 
lab to the clinic setting. Furthermore, the novel study of observer responses to agents with varying embodiment 
will shed light into the response of an in-person embodied agent is different from a phone or computer agent 
on a screen. The objective of this project is to develop a robot prototype system for use in care environments 
through a user-centered design and evaluation process. The central hypothesis is that embodied robots can 
provide effective assistance to a human caregiver during TBI/post-stroke neurorehabilitation and that a system 
can be developed for a robot to be effectively integrated into a caregiver's current workflow. The rationale for 
this research is that neurorehabilitation is time-intensive and has better results with supervision. There is a 
workforce shortage of people qualified to provide this supervision and that current technology can enable 
robots to be able to supervise a patient for small windows of time and address the care shortage. This will help 
improve patient compliance which may lead to better health outcomes. The central goal of this project will be 
furthered through three specific aims: (1) the user-centered design and in-lab validation of a robot system 
designed for use with patients with TBI to support their caregivers; (2) a long-term evaluation of the systems 
performance and its effect on the workflow in a clinic setting that extends the research out of the lab and into 
care environments for multi-session evaluation; and (3) behavioral and neural experiments that compare an 
observer's response to an embodied agent to an on-screen 2D or 3D agent. Studies of Human-Robot 
Interaction primarily consists of short-term interaction scenarios. Results from this work is usually bounded by 
the time spent interacting. This project will address the needs of the Socially Assistive Robotics community by 
approaching generalizable problems related to long-term Human-Robot Interaction and applying them to 
studies of neurorehabilitation for TBI/stroke. The contribution of the proposed research is that it will lead to 
significant ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9984414
- **Project number:** 5P20GM103650-09
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO
- **Principal Investigator:** David Feil-Seifer
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $319
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9984414

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9984414, Project 9: Using Socially Assistive Robot Assistants to Augment NeuroRehabilitation Exercise Therapy (5P20GM103650-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9984414. Licensed CC0.

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