Development of a Home-based Wrist Rehabilitation System

There are several factors that may result to wrist injuries such as athlete injuries and stroke. Most of the patients are unable to undergo rehabilitation at healthcare providers due to cost and logistic constraint. To solve this problem, this project proposes a home-based wrist rehabilitation system. The goal is to create a wrist rehabilitation device that incorporates an interactive computer game so that patients can use it at home without assistance. The main structure of the device is developed using 3D printer. The device is connected to a computer, where the device provides exercises for the wrist, as the user completes a computer game which requires moving a ball to four target positions. Data from an InvenSense MPU-6050 accelerometer is used to measure wrist movements. The accelerometer values are read and used to control a mouse cursor for the computer game. The pattern of wrist movements can be recorded periodically and displayed back as sample run for analysis purposes. In this paper, the usefulness of the proposed system is demonstrated through preliminary experiment of a subject using the device to complete a wrist exercise task based on the developed computer game. The result shows the usefulness of the proposed system.