Researchers: Luke Buschmann, Sri Kurniawan. In collaboration with Cabrillo College’s Stroke and Disability Learning Center.
Stroke can leave survivors with some form of hemiparesis (weakness of one side of the body). Virtual rehabilitation in the past decade has shown higher success than traditional rehabilitation. It improves the patient’s experience and can allow for clinical rehab without a clinician present. Research in non-virtual rehabilitation shows that constraint induced movement therapy is very effective in treating hemiplegia. In this therapy, the patient’s strong side is physically constrained using a mitt or hand splint on the non-affected limb, forcing the patient to utilize their weaker limb for daily activity.
The goal of this research is to evaluate the behavior of stroke survivors with hemiparesis in virtual rehabilitation where a constraint is induced virtually via varying incentives during gameplay.
Examining the user’s behavior during their virtual rehab sessions, we will look at a variety of elements. We will examine the user’s preference of game. Each of the four mini games use a different upper limb movement. The hypothesis is that the user may have a preference of game that relates to their physical condition. We will also examine the user’s preference of side (weak or strong) that they use to play the games. We may be able to find a point at which the incentive to use the weak side is adequate to reliably motivate the users. We can also compare the user’s compliance rate of adhering to the constraint with currently published research. We will also compare user’s range of motion measurements before and after the study to assess the effectiveness of the system.
In the next image we have a sample game: In the top left game, the user moves his hand side to side to control the bucket to catch the eggs as they fall from the sky. In the top right game, the user moves his hand up and down to control catch the stars as they fly across the sky. In the bottom left game, the user moves their forearm to control the bat as balls are thrown toward the screen. In the bottom right game, the user controls the egg pan with their forearm to catch fried eggs as they fall from the sky.
The following is a video overview of our project: