Cerebral palsy (CP) is a non-progressive neurologic pathology representing a leading cause of spasticity and concerning gait impairments in children. Robotic-assisted gait training (RAGT) is widely employed to treat this pathology to improve children's gait pattern. Importantly, the effectiveness of the therapy is strictly related to the engagement of the patient in the rehabilitation process, which depends on his/her psychophysiological state. The aim of the study is to evaluate the psychophysiological condition of children with CP during RAGT through infrared thermography (IRT), which was acquired during three sessions in one month. A repeated measure ANOVA was performed (i.e., mean value, standard deviation, and sample entropy) extracted from the temperature time course collected over the nose and corrugator, which are known to be indicative of the psychophysiological state of the individual. Concerning the corrugator, significant differences were found for the sample entropy (F (1.477, 5.907) = 6.888; p = 0.033) and for the mean value (F (1.425, 5.7) = 5.88; p = 0.047). Regarding the nose tip, the sample entropy showed significant differences (F (1.134, 4.536) = 11.5; p = 0.041). The findings from this study suggests that this approach can be used to evaluate in a contactless manner the psychophysiological condition of the children with CP during RAGT, allowing to monitor their engagement to the therapy, increasing the benefits of the treatment.
Keywords: cerebral palsy; infrared thermography; neurorehabilitation; psychophysiological assessment; rehabilitation; robotic-assisted gait training; therapeutic engagement.