Abstract
Recent advances in low-cost natural user interfaces such as Microsoft Kinect and Leap Motion controller allow the Virtual Reality implementation of 3D serious games for, posture, upper limb and lower limb rehabilitation purposes. However, it is very important to compare the results obtained by the users that train in virtual and real environments. This paper presents a virtual reality serious game for upper limb rehabilitation using a natural user interface expressed by Leap Motion controller. One of the developed virtual reality serious game for rehabilitation is converted to a real scenario with the same elements and rules and the same aims of physical rehabilitation. In order to extract appropriate information from the serious game based on real objects a RFID technology was used together with software components developed in LabVIEW. The evaluation of hand muscles' activity during the training session is based on the usage of thermography that permits to measure in an unobtrusive way the distribution of the temperature on the hands' level. Based on analysis of thermographic images obtained before and after serious game practice, the level of activity of specific muscles associated with training for virtual and real scenario is extracted. Experimental results that are also included in the paper underline the effectiveness of the proposed method for the comparison of the training in virtual and real scenarios.
Highlights
The physical rehabilitation for the patients that suffered accidents or stroke events requires intensive intervention aimed at mainly improving motor abilities
This paper presents a virtual reality serious game for upper limb rehabilitation using a natural user interface expressed by Leap Motion controller
The game "Collect Color Cube" was developed by the authors using Unity and C# scripts the interface between the user and virtual reality (VR) scenario is expressed by the Leap Motion controller connected by a computer that runs the VR serious game
Summary
The physical rehabilitation for the patients that suffered accidents or stroke events requires intensive intervention aimed at mainly improving motor abilities. Referring Kinect there are several implementations that use Microsoft Kinect to control the games, providing feedback to patients, and even as a measuring tool [7][8]. The question of the usage of VR scenario instead the real scenario made the physiotherapist to question the VR efficiency in rehabilitation In this context the present work provide a serious game based solution for physical rehabilitation, while the same serious game is implemented for VR and real scenario. The present approach is based on the usage of a thermography camera that provides non-intrusive procedure to measure the temperature without physical contact with the patient. The paper is organized as follows: section two presents the proposed serious game in two type of implementation including the main elements of the developed hardware and software components; section three is dedicated to the thermography as a method to measure the skin temperature on the hand level; section four is dedicated to the uncertainty sources; section five includes preliminary experimental results and the last section, section six, draws the conclusions
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