Standard rehabilitation methods generally assess the effects of the applied therapies and classify patients’ evolution by means of well-known validated clinical scales. Though these scales are the gold standard during functional assessments because of their simplicity and effectiveness, there might be room for improvement with respect to their sensitivity and reproducibility. In parallel, a recent trend within the robotics community is to develop standard testing and evaluation protocols to guarantee an objective comparison between different robotic systems. As part of these efforts, the H2020 EUROBENCH project (https://eurobench2020.eu/) has created a new testing facility, hosted by the Center for Clinical Neuroscience (CCN) at Hospital Los Madroños (Madrid, Spain), where researchers and developers can objectively assess and compare the locomotion abilities of their bipedal robotic devices employing standard sensorized testing platforms, protocols and metrics.

Following a similar approach, could the rehabilitation field benefit from the integration of a wider set of sensors and objective metrics for complementing the scales used during the functional assessments? Would objectivity be an asset for the quality of the diagnostic and assessment of patients? Could this be a first step towards the adoption of updated and more standard clinical scales?

This workshop aims at (1) rising awareness among researchers about the value and challenges of including standardized methods and testing protocols during clinical studies, (2) encouraging a sustained collaboration between engineers and clinicians in everyday research and (3) fostering an open debate to understand how to enhance clinical assessment by integrating technology during standard care.