Low-cost Virtual Rehabilitation of the Hand for Patients Post-Stroke

Abstract

We are witnessing the convergence of game technology (both software and hardware) with rehabilitation science to form a second-generation virtual rehabilitation framework. This is fortunate in view of the need to reduce system costs and thus facilitate adoption in clinical practice. This paper presents an Xbox-based physical rehabilitation system currently under development at Rutgers University. Unlike its high-end precursor aimed at hand training for patients post-stroke, the experimental system described here uses an inexpensive P5 game glove and Java 3D simulations. This results in significant cost savings, albeit with some tradeoff in functionality