Learning from rehabilitation: A bi-manual interface approach

Providing portable and affordable virtual reality systems for upper limb stroke rehabilitation is still a challenge. Here we present a simple user interface that allows the integration of various upper limb stroke exercises that can be autonomously performed by patients without the presence of a therapist, yet is portable and assembled using affordable off-the-shelf hardware components. In particular, the system integrates a bi-manual memory game where the user has to engage in meaningful therapeutic reaching exercises. We evaluated the user interface with a wide range of normal subjects and found that participants perceived the system as easy to use, they had no problems with the interaction and had an overall enjoyable experience with the system. This opens up possibilities of combining therapeutic reaching movements with goal-directed tasks to improve motivation and to enhance and increase rehabilitation outcomes for post-stroke patients. Beyond therapeutic use, our approach can also be applied to other 3D user interfaces for bi-manual interaction.