Virtual reality-based post-stroke hand rehabilitation.
A VR-based system using a CyberGlove and a Rutgers Master II-ND haptic glove was used to rehabilitate four post-stroke patients in the chronic phase. Each patient had to perform a variety of VR exercises to reduce impairments in their finger range of motion, speed, fractionation and strength. Patients exercised for about two hours per day, five days a week for three weeks. Results showed that three of the patients had gains in thumb range (50-140%) and finger speed (10-15%) over the three weeks trial. All four patients had significant improvement in finger fractionation (40-118%). Gains in finger strength were modest, due in part to an unexpected hardware malfunction. Two of the patients were measured against one-month post intervention and showed good retention. Evaluation using the Jebsen Test of Hand Function showed a reduction of 23-28% in time completion for two of the patients (the ones with the higher degrees of impairment). A prehension task was performed 9-40% faster for three of the patients after the intervention illustrating transfer of their improvement to a functional task.
Center for Advanced Information Processing, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
R
R
Boian
A
A
Sharma
C
C
Han
A
A
Merians
G
G
Burdea
S
S
Adamovich
M
M
Recce
M
M
Tremaine
H
H
Poizner
D000368:Aged; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D018737:Hand Strength; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000295:instrumentation; D008838:Microcomputers; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills; D010865:Pilot Projects; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014110:Touch; D014584:User-Computer Interface