Augmenting Gait Training in Stroke and Cerebral Palsy Patients Using Auditory Biofeedback

Auditory biofeedback has been increasingly explored as a tool to enhance motor performance and learning in neurological patients, although its full clinical potential is presently untapped. Sound is strongly coupled to movement at a neural level, making it a powerful medium for the conveyance of movement-specific temporal information. Moreover, music universally elicits, motivates, and mediates movement while boosting mood and positive affect during training. As such, a combination of carefully curated naturalistic, musical, and humorous sounds mapped to real-time motion sensor data can be used to generate feedback stimuli for children and older adults alike. The present contribution compiles insights from five years of auditory biofeedback design, development, and clinical evaluation, covering a set of key elements: user-centered methodology, interactive development of feedback algorithms, and immediate movement effects from feedback use in different contexts. Present scientific gaps, challenges, and directions for future research are also briefly outlined.