Virtual Reality Environment with Haptic Feedback Thimble for Post Spinal Cord Injury Upper-Limb Rehabilitation

Álvaro Gutiérrez,Ana De Los Reyes Guzmán,Ángel Gil-Agudo,Nicola Farella

doi:10.3390/app11062476

Abstract

Cervical spinal cord injury is damage to the spinal cord that causes temporary or permanent changes in body functions below the site of the injury. In particular, the impairment of the upper limbs limits the patient’s autonomy in the execution of activities of daily living. This paper illustrates the use of a low-cost robot with a virtual reality platform for upper limb rehabilitation of cervical spinal cord injury patients. Vibration and pressure haptic feedback sensations are provided thanks to a custom-made thimble feedback device. The virtual reality platform consists of three different virtual rehabilitation games developed in Unity. They provide the user with the opportunity to interact with the virtual scene using free hands thanks to the data collected by a hand tracking system. During the therapy session, quantitative data about the motor performance are collected. Each virtual reality environment can be modified in settings according to the patients’ needs. A proof of concept was performed with both healthy subjects and spinal cord injured patients to evaluate the platform and its usability. The data saved during the sessions are analyzed to validate the importance of haptic feedback and stored both for patients and therapists to control the performance and the recovery process.

Highlights

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is mechanical damage to the spinal cord. It can be traumatic when the damage results from physical traumas or non-traumatic when it is caused by an underlying pathology
The aim of this paper is to develop a set of serious games based on upper limb (UL) functional tasks that allow neurorehabilitation in SCI patients
The results show that, on average of the points obtained shows that it was more difficult for the patients to reach average, patients took longerAlternatively, to complete this the exercise

Summary

Introduction

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is mechanical damage to the spinal cord. It can be traumatic when the damage results from physical traumas (car accidents, work accidents, gunshots, falls, sports injuries, etc.) or non-traumatic when it is caused by an underlying pathology (infection, tumors, musculoskeletal disease, etc.) [1]. SCI causes an alteration of sensory and motor function since there is an interruption of nervous tissue that performs the communication between the brain and the rest of the body [2]. SCI can be classified according to the severity in incomplete injury when nerve communications are partially interrupted (some sensory and/or motor activity is retained) and in complete injury when the damage completely impedes nerve communications (no functions retained). Determining the cord segments affected by the spinal cord injury appears to be crucial in order to understand the gravity of the situation and to adapt the rehabilitation plan [3]

Methods

Results

Conclusion