Psychosocial dimensions of robotic rehabilitation for stroke survivors

The aim of this chapter is to present a framework of interactions between the technologist’s innovation, clinician’s services, and stroke patient’s perspectives. These interactions produce a gray area, the unique psychosocial perspective of the patient with stroke toward the equipment that they use. These psychosocial dimensions are a multi-construct phenomenon and are heavily influenced by ongoing interactions with the immediate society that patients live in, the profile of the healthcare services that are made available to them, the unique features and challenges of the rehabilitation technology, and the continuously evolving emotional responses to the individual’s changing life events. Knowledge of the continuum may help in joining the dots between technology, person, and the environment to ensure better compliance. This chapter describes the patient’s emotional and psychosocial challenges, aspects of neurorehabilitation, and the use of robotics to create better outcome possibilities, all these from the standpoint of a psychosocial perspective. The challenges and gaps may help us better understand and develop rationales for robotic intervention.