Virtual games based self rehabilitation for home therapy system

It has been reported that 53,000 stroke events annually with ongoing costs are nearly $500 million per year for physical therapy care. This paper aims to provide effective and active rehabilitation for patients suffering from upper limb paresis, using gaming based a therapy technique. By disguising the tasks into more entertaining, patients are motivated to train for longer and more frequently. The advantage of this system can be a self-managed, at-home therapy system; reducing fatigue for physical therapists, and the time required for therapist-patient sessions. The system incorporates a virtual reality (VR) environment displaying both the games and a human model as feedback of the patients´ actions whilst playing the games. Two games were developed, each targeting improvement of muscle strength, control, accuracy and speed. The difficulty of the games can be varied to suit a number of impairments and patient progress is monitored. The games are played using a Nintendo Wii controller. The successful improvements with lower costs associated with this system, are marked improvements for patients suffering from such a debilitating condition.