Non-Invasive Technologies in Neurorehabilitation: Novel Neurorehabilitative Treatments for Motor and Cognitive Disorders

Introduction

Neurological diseases account for a wide and expanding health burden around the world: among them, dementias like Alzheimer’s disease, headache (migraine and tension-type headache), epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, Parkinson’s disease, motor neuron diseases, neuroinfectious diseases, and stroke (Whiteford et al., 2015). The most recent estimates, nowadays, come from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 showing that neurological illnesses are the third most common cause of disability and premature death, after cardiovascular diseases and cancers, within the EU, and their predominance and burden will likely increment with age growing of the European population (Bikbov et al., 2020). Particularly, neurological disorders caused 41.1 million deaths and 21.0 million of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Specifically, stroke, dementias, and headache accounted for the three commonest causes of DALYs in the EU (Deuschl et al., 2020). Moreover, this burden is higher through men than in women, with a peak between 80–84 years (Deuschl et al., 2020). The increase in the absolute numbers of people—including incident and prevalent cases—who died or remained disabled from non-communicable neurological disorders suggests that the advances in prevention and management of these disorders have not been sufficiently effective to counterbalance ongoing population growth and ageing. In this regard, the proposed advances in the management of neurological disorders are not keeping up with the increasing burden of neurological disorders. From a public health point of view, this is upsetting because people with neurological disorders require adequate and accurate care in both hospital and community settings, although currently health-care resources are still limited. Besides dramatically affecting health and wellbeing, neurological disorders cause a negative balance even in countries with best economies. In fact, the European Brain Council proposed the Value of Treatment for Brain Disorders Project, focusing on the benefits of improving healthcare, the identification of possible treatment gaps in the patients care system, and associated cost savings (Di Luca et al., 2019). Given the limited resources and competing health issues all policy makers are facing around the globe, coordinated advocacy efforts are required at the individual, institutional, local, and national government levels, with support from relevant non-governmental and patient organizations (Di Luca et al., 2019). Such efforts should encourage prioritization and promote the funding and implementation of strategies to reduce the burden of neurological disorders. Overall, this data underlies the necessity to provide early, effective and efficient interventions to prevent both health and economic burden.