Although 3D virtual environments are designed to provide the user with an intuitive interface to view or manipulate highly complex data, current solutions are still not ideal. In order to make the interaction as natural as possible, metaphors are used to allow the users to apply their everyday knowledge in the generated environment. In literature, a lot of experiments can be found, describing new or improved metaphors. In our former work, we presented the 'Object In Hand' metaphor [4], which addresses some problems regarding the access of objects and menus in a 3D world. Although the metaphor turned out to be very promising, the solution shifted the problem towards a selection problem. From the insights of our previous work, we believe the non-dominant hand can play a role in solving this problem. In this paper we formally compare three well-known selection metaphors and we will check their suitability to be carried out with the non-dominant hand in order to seamlessly integrate the most suitable selection metaphor within the 'Object In Hand' metaphor.
Rehabilitation games form a promising type of serious games. The goal is to provide the patients with a personalized training. In order to realize this, much information must be handled. This includes general information about the games and parameters regarding modalities, and specific information about the patients and their therapy sessions. Therapists must be able to specify the values for all parameters involved. However, different levels of these parameters should be grouped in a sensible manner in order not to overwhelm the therapists with too much and too detailed information. This paper discusses a system for the rehabilitation of Multiple Sclerosis patients and explains how the information can be managed by the therapists.
This workshop brings together a number of researchers that are involved in the design, engineering, evaluation and applicability of game-like virtual and multimodal environments. It is a forum to discuss experiences, best practices, and design and engineering approaches with a particular focus on those aspects that are related to the interactivity of the game.
Upper limb weakness due to Multiple Sclerosis has a major negative effect on the functional activities of the patient. Promising developments in the field of rehabilitation robotics may enable additional exercise. This study aims to investigate which types of robotic outcome measures are clinically relevant, in preparation of the evaluation for intervention studies.Within this context, appropriate movement tasks and tests for the haptic PHANTOM end-effector robot were designed in a virtual environment. These tasks focused on spatial accuracy, object manipulation and speed. Outcome measures were: 1) virtual movement tests, recorded by the robot to quantify motor control; 2) clinical outcome measures such as the Motricity Index, Jamar and MicroFET hand-held dynamometer to evaluate muscle strength; and the Nine Hole Peg Test, Purdue Pegboard, ARAt and TEMPA to asses upper limb function and manual dexterity.10 healthy controls performed the virtual movement tasks using the Phantom as interface. 21 MS subjects with upper limb dysfunction caused by muscle weakness were included in an interventional training study. Pearson correlations were calculated at baseline between the performance on the three virtual movement tasks and the clinical tests on impairment and activity level. The virtual movement tests discriminated between healthy controls and MS patients with hand dysfunction. In the MS patient group, no significant correlations were found between muscle strength tests and virtual movement tasks, while mainly significant correlations were found between specific functional measures (specifically ARAt and Purdue pegboard test) and virtual movement tasks.
