Design of a Cognitive Rehabilitation System Based on Gesture Recognition

Abstract

Computer-assisted cognitive training is an effective intervention for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can avoid the disadvantages of traditional cognitive training that consumes a lot of medical resources and is difficult to be standardized. However, many computer-assisted cognitive training systems have unfriendly human-computer interaction, for not considering that most MCI patients have certain difficulties in using computers. In this paper, we design a cognitive training system which allows patients to implement human-computer interaction through gestures. First, a gesture recognition algorithm is proposed, in which we implement gesture segmentation based on YCbCr color space and Otsu algorithm, extract Fourier Descriptors of gesture contour as feature vectors and use SVM algorithm to train a classifier to recognize gestures. Then, the graphical user interface (GUI) of the system is designed to realize the task requirement of cognitive training for the MCI patients. Finally, the results of tests show the accuracy of the algorithm and the feasibility of the GUI. With the above computer-assisted cognitive training system, patients can achieve human-computer interaction only through gestures without the need to use keyboard, mouse, etc., greatly reducing the burden of patients during training.