A Longitudinal Field Trial with a Hemiplegic Guitarist Using The Actuated Guitar

Common emotional effects following a stroke are depression, apathy and lack of motivation. To investigate if re-enabling people to play an already known musical instrument would help increase motivation, self rehabilitation and quality of life a longitudinal case study were conducted. The par- ticipant were a right side hemiplegic man and former gui- tar player. The intervention lasted for three weeks where the participant had a fully functional electrical guitar fit- ted with a strumming device controlled by a foot pedal at his free disposal. The device replaced the right hand strumming and the study showed that the participant where highly motivated playing 20 sessions despite system latency and reduced musical expression. He even incorporated his own literature and equipment into his playing routine as the study progressed. He improved greatly during the sturdy. He were able to play alone and keep his own steady rhythm and along to backing tracks as fast as 120bpm. During the study he were able to lower his error rate with 33% and his average flutter decreased as well.