Neurorehabilitation using the virtual reality based Rehabilitation Gaming System: methodology, design, psychometrics, usability and validation.
BACKGROUND
Stroke is a frequent cause of adult disability that can lead to enduring impairments. However, given the life-long plasticity of the brain one could assume that recovery could be facilitated by the harnessing of mechanisms underlying neuronal reorganization. Currently it is not clear how this reorganization can be mobilized. Novel technology based neurorehabilitation techniques hold promise to address this issue. Here we describe a Virtual Reality (VR) based system, the Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS) that is based on a number of hypotheses on the neuronal mechanisms underlying recovery, the structure of training and the role of individualization. We investigate the psychometrics of the RGS in stroke patients and healthy controls.


METHODS
We describe the key components of the RGS and the psychometrics of one rehabilitation scenario called Spheroids. We performed trials with 21 acute/subacute stroke patients and 20 healthy controls to study the effect of the training parameters on task performance. This allowed us to develop a Personalized Training Module (PTM) for online adjustment of task difficulty. In addition, we studied task transfer between physical and virtual environments. Finally, we assessed the usability and acceptance of the RGS as a rehabilitation tool.


RESULTS
We show that the PTM implemented in RGS allows us to effectively adjust the difficulty and the parameters of the task to the user by capturing specific features of the movements of the arms. The results reported here also show a consistent transfer of movement kinematics between physical and virtual tasks. Moreover, our usability assessment shows that the RGS is highly accepted by stroke patients as a rehabilitation tool.


CONCLUSIONS
We introduce a novel VR based paradigm for neurorehabilitation, RGS, which combines specific rehabilitative principles with a psychometric evaluation to provide a personalized and automated training. Our results show that the RGS effectively adjusts to the individual features of the user, allowing for an unsupervised deployment of individualized rehabilitation protocols.
Cameirão
Mónica S
MS
Laboratory of Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS), Department of Technology, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Edifici la Nau, Roc Boronat 138, Barcelona, Spain.
Badia
Sergi Bermúdez I
SB
Oller
Esther Duarte
ED
Verschure
Paul F M J
PF
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D002138:Calibration; D003196:Computer Graphics; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006429:Hemiplegia / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012985:Software Design; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D018910:Video Games