Enhancing effectiveness of motor rehabilitation using kinect motion sensing technology

Abstract

Serious games and their use in healthcare applications are rapidly growing areas of interest for researchers and practitioners. It has been observed that the physically disabled persons typically lack enthusiasm for rehabilitation. This hinders their recovery and ability to care for themselves. Using research and recommendations from therapists, we developed a product, Kinect-o-Therapy, that involved implementation of exercise routines targeting different parts of the body and aided people with motor disabilities stemming from cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, post stroke and hereditary muscle ailments amongst others. Kinect-o-Therapy incorporates serious games that process 3D input using the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor to build an effective rehabilitation system. It is a plug-and-play type product that gives feedback to the patient and the doctors to monitor performance. The game environment and feedback mechanism ensure patients involvement and high motivation to carry out these exercise routines regularly. Real-life testing of Kinect-o-Therapy shows that patients and physiotherapists both find it quite engaging, easy-to-use and a motivational alternative of rehabilitation.