An upper limb mirror therapy environment with hand tracking in virtual reality

Abstract

Mirror therapy, the rehabilitative technique that uses a mirroring illusion to induce cognitive responses, could benefit by performing the task in a virtual world. This research is aimed to build an effective virtual reality environment with gesture-level hand tracking and determine its viability when compared to traditional mirror therapy. A total of 24 healthy participants were recruited to perform a block stacking task in both the physical and virtual environments, with and without mirroring, using their dominant arm. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was used to measure activation of the flexor carpi radialis (FCR), extensor digitorum (ED), biceps brachii (BB) and triceps brachii (TB) in both arms. The virtual environment was shown to decrease task completion speed due to the added difficulty of control in that environment. Significant differences in muscle activity between conditions for the non-dominant arm were not achieved; however, there were significant differences in muscle activity between conditions for the dominant arm. Difficulty and weight discrepancies between the physical and virtual tasks may have contributed to this significance.