Clinical trials

In the rehabilitation project for patients with severe Acquired Brain Injury (sABI), it is essential to include exercises that facilitate the recovery of the upright position (or verticalization). Recently, tilt-table equipped with the robot-assisted lower limbs cyclic mobilization has been proposed as a safe and suitable device for accelerating the adaptation to vertical posture in bedridden patients with brain-injury since the acute phase. The present multicentre study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of robotic assisted verticalization plus mobilization (VEM) versus traditional verticalization (TV) in a large cohort of patients with sABI.

Considerable evidence exists for using Virtual Reality (VR) for rehabilitation of acquired brain injury (ABI), with a particular focus on stroke. However, to date very little evidence has been collected in patients with ABI with different aetiologies (i.e., traumatic or anoxic brain injury) and level of severity (i.e., severe, sABI). The present multicentre study aims to overcome current literature issues as heterogeneity of populations and outcomes, small sample sizes and a lack of randomized controlled trials, which can affect the level of evidence and generalizability of results, to determine the effectiveness of a non immersive VR-based rehabilitation versus traditional cognitive training (TCT).

The aim of this project is to investigate whether tickling stimulations can have a short-term effect on the responsiveness of patients with Disorders of Consciousness due to Severe Acquired Brain Injury and to compare this effect with that of neutral tactile stimulations that do not induce tickling.

The aim of this project is to evaluate the behavioural and neurophysiological responses to pleasant touch in patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) and to determine whether these responses are related to the level of consciousness. Specifically, the study aims to: 1. explore the relationship between pleasant tactile stimulation and behavioural and neurophysiological responses in patients with DoC; 2. determine whether behavioural responses to pleasant touch stimulation correlate with the level of consciousness; 3. assess whether behavioural responses vary depending on the valence of the stimulus (pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant); 4. examine neurophysiological responses to tactile stimulation using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and evaluate whether brain activation patterns are associated with behavioural responses; 5. improve diagnostic accuracy in patients with DoC by exploring the value of somatosensory responses in distinguishing unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) from minimally conscious state (MCS) or conscious patients; 6. explore the potential usefulness of implementing this type of stimulation within rehabilitation programs to support better recovery of consciousness.