A system for sensory motor rehabilitation of the upper limb with virtual reality, exoskeleton robot, and real objects

Abstract

Technology assisted therapy has the potential to transform rehabilitation options available, and to dramatically increase the reach of today's healthcare system. Yet challenges persist in rendering translational application designs that optimize the full potential of technology and create value for the patient and the therapist. In a step towards optimizing value of technologies for practical applications to support very weak patients who might otherwise be unable to participate in traditional therapies, an integrated sensory motor training station was designed and developed. Inspired by recent neuroscientific research findings the goal of the design was to provide concurrent first person perspective immersive action observation of both virtual and real elements for motor and sensory experience; the system incorporates a virtual limb proxy that can be personalized and actuated by the robot and that is accompanied by exercise practice in peripersonal space for a plasticity promoting experience for the hand and arm. The station uses virtual reality and real objects for visual sensory experience, real objects also provide tactile sensory experience, and an exoskeleton upper limb robot provides assistance to patients. For many patients, successful movement and movement intensity required in rehabilitation is not achievable without the robot assistance. The multi-sensory features of the system promote a top-down strategy for training the upper limb (hand and arm) complementing the robot training; the system is ideally targeted for weak patients and those with tactile or proprioception sensory loss and those who are known to benefit from multi-sensory experiences.

A Fully Immersive Set-Up for Remote Interaction and Neurorehabilitation Based on Virtual Body Ownership

“…This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a telerehabilitation system based on immersive VR includes the internalization (and ownership) of whole virtual bodies. In particular, most current virtual rehabilitation systems do not integrate the full body into the virtual or mixed-reality environment (Mario et al, 2004 ; Tang et al, 2005 ) or present isolated virtual representations of the tracked hands only, interacting with the VE (Subramanian et al, 2007 ; August et al, 2011 ). In previous studies, when whole virtual body representations are considered, then they are in a collaborative non-immersive set-up (Kurillo et al, 2011 ).…”

“…By VR we refer to a set of technologies that attempts to create an immersive computer display that surrounds the participant (Ellis, 1991 ). VR replaces direct vision and audition of the real environment with synthesized stimuli, and can also integrate haptic (tactile and force) cues representing virtual objects or remote interactions (Popescu et al, 2000 ; August et al, 2011 ). In remote teleneurology, the exploitation of VR is able to provide real time feedback to the participant (Merians et al, 2002 ; Cameirao et al, 2009 ), comprised of parallel streams of sensory information (visual, sound, or haptics; Adamovich et al, 2009b ).…”

“…Therapies based on telerehabilitation mainly employ haptic devices for monitoring data captured during physical exercises, so that the performance of patients can be evaluated (Adamovich et al, 2009a ). However, haptic feedback also enriches sensory experience for the participant (August et al, 2011 ) by providing forces that produce biomechanical interactions with other devices, virtual objects (simulating the interaction forces produced by the same object in reality) or remotely located people (Popescu et al, 2000 ). These telerehabilitation set-ups can yield comparable benefits compared to those of traditional non-mediated therapies.…”

Design of Information Acquisition and Control System for the Exoskeleton Robot

“…The data are transmitted to host computer by ZigBee wireless communication modules and then will be displayed and monitored in real time through application software which is programmed by VC++. The host computer sends corresponding instructions to master controller after analyzing the data, and the master controller controls motor drivers through CAN bus to conduct motors to realize assistance [9].…”