COVID-19 pandemic has affected the population worldwide, evidencing new challenges and opportunities for several kinds of emergent and existing technologies. Social Assistive Robotics could be a potential tool to support clinical care areas, promoting physical distancing, and reducing the contagion rate. In this context, this paper presents a long-term evaluation of a social robotic platform for gait neurorehabilitation. The robot's primary roles are monitoring physiological progress and promoting social interaction with human distancing during the sessions. A clinical validation with ten patients during 15 sessions were conducted in a rehabilitation center located in Colombia. Results showed that the robot's support improves the patients' physiological progress by reducing their unhealthy spinal posture time, with positive acceptance. 65\% of patients described the platform as helpful and secure. Regarding the robot's role within the therapy, the health care staff agreed (>95%) that this tool can promote physical distancing and it is highly useful to support neurorehabilitation throughout the pandemic. These outcomes suggest the benefits of this tool to be further implemented in the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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神经康复的长期人机交互：机器人作为大流行中步态治疗的工具

COVID-19大流行已经影响了全球人口，为多种新兴技术和现有技术带来了新的挑战和机遇。社会辅助机器人技术可能是支持临床护理领域，促进身体疏远和降低传染率的潜在工具。在这种情况下，本文提出了一种用于步态神经康复的社交机器人平台的长期评估。在会议期间，机器人的主要作用是监视生理进程并促进与人类疏远的社交互动。在位于哥伦比亚的康复中心进行了15次疗程中的10名患者的临床验证。结果表明，机器人的支持通过减少患者不健康的脊柱姿势时间改善了患者的生理进步，并获得了积极的接受。65％的患者将平台描述为有用且安全的平台。关于机器人在治疗中的作用，医护人员同意（> 95％），该工具可以促进身体疏远，并且在整个大流行中支持神经康复非常有用。这些结果表明，该工具的益处将在大流行中进一步实施。