Relearning perception action in rehabilitation from a systems perspective
Movement disorders related to perception and action, such as stroke, significantly impair functioning in daily living, severely impacting the life of affected individuals and having a huge economic impact. Although rehabilitation practice aims to restore functional ability through re-learning perception-action couplings, it leads to marginal improvements of daily functioning at best. Here it is argued that to improve effectiveness of rehabilitation a systems approach should be adopted to understand processes underlying perception-action disorders. A systems approach takes into account nonlinear interactions between components, enabling to explain for instance why patients do not respond stereotypical to rehabilitation training. REPAIRS (RE-learning Perception-Action In Rehabilitation from a Systems perspective) is a unique and timely training-through-research school, aiming to improve rehabilitation effectiveness. REPAIRS starts from systems-based fundamental knowledge on learning perception-action couplings to build applications to rehabilitation, while exploiting recent technology advancements. This research school provides the required critical mass of top-level researchers connecting European academic, clinical and technology experts to train the next generation of researchers and entrepreneurs in this perspective. REPAIRS studies interaction between four levels of the perception-action cycle: brain, muscles & joints, agent-environment and social, which is integrated with requirements on translation from clinical, technology and philosophical domains. The focus on interactions between levels and domains naturally ensures an interdisciplinary and intersectoral training. Integrating this with a high-level training of transferrable skills, dissemination and communication while exploiting an Experiential Skill Learning Workshop, will boost the employability of the young researchers involved and the innovation potential of Europe through reshaping rehabilitation.