Gesture therapy: A clinical evaluation

Each year millions of people in the world survive a stroke. Movement impairments after stroke are typically treated with intensive, hands-on physical and occupational therapy for several weeks after the initial injury. However, due to economic pressures, stroke patients are receiving less therapy and going home sooner, so the potential benefit of the therapy is not completely realized. Thus, it is important to develop rehabilitation technology that allows individuals who had suffered a stroke to practice intensive movement training without the expense of an always-present therapist. We have developed a low-cost, computer vision system that allows individuals with stroke to practice arm movement exercises at home or at the clinic, with periodic interactions with a therapist. The system integrates a virtual environment for facilitating repetitive movement training, with computer vision algorithms that track the hand of a patient and obtain its 3-D coordinates, using an inexpensive camera and a conventional personal computer. The system, called “Gesture Therapy”, is being evaluated in a controlled clinical trial at a hospital in Mexico City. In this paper we describe the system and discuss the results of a first clinical evaluation.