Design of a VR-Based Upper Limb Gross Motor and Fine Motor Task Platform for Post-Stroke Survivors

Neurological disorders are a leading cause of disability which is often characterized by reduced mobility in one’s upper limb. This often deters an individual from effective execution of different Gross Motor and Fine Motor tasks as part of activities of daily living (ADL). Conventional rehabilitation methods, though powerful, require one-to-one supervision over repeated exposures. This becomes a bottleneck given limited availability of healthcare resources. Thus investigators are exploring the use of alternate technology-assisted platforms. However, the currently existing technology-assisted platforms are limited in individualization. Specifically, these are not adaptive to one’s individualized performance capability. To bridge this gap, in our present study, we have designed a Virtual Reality (VR) based environment integrated with Data-glove for training patients with upper limb movement disorder in Gross Motor and Fine Motor tasks. Our system offered tasks of varying challenges based on one’s individualized performance. The preliminary results of a usability study carried out with few healthy and post-stroke hemiplegic participants are promising.