Design of adaptive haptic-enabled virtual reality based system for upper limb movement disorders: A Usability Study

Abstract

Neurological disorders are major cause of global disease burden. They often impair hand function, a critical element of our day-to-day activities of daily living. Conventional rehabilitation techniques aim to improve one's ability to use affected limbs which are tailored to individual capabilities (performance and stress level) by clinicians based on the patient's health and progress in skill. However, in developing countries, like India with increasing healthcare costs for availing specialized services, patients are often discharged sooner than required from healthcare units following stroke. Additionally, the situation becomes critical with limited availability of trained healthcare resources. Thus design of intelligent home-based technology-assisted individualized rehabilitation platform with real-time feedback with monitored skill progress is essential. In our present research, we have designed a Virtual Reality (VR) based haptic-enabled Physiologically Aided (PA) Rehabilitation System for patients with upper limb movement disorders. Additionally, we have made a comparative analysis of our PA system with Performance Sensitive (PS) system while offering tasks of varying difficulty levels along with audio-visual feedback. We have designed a Usability Study as proof-of-concept application where we have focused on the patient's shoulder abduction and adduction exercise. The preliminary results of our study are promising. This shows that our system can be a step towards designing a VR-based technology-assisted rehabilitation platform for stroke patients with a potential to address at least some of the issues associated with upper limb movement disorders.