Effective stroke rehabilitation typically involves improving both motor function and mental state. Traditional rehabilitation systems are generally expensive, not portable and difficult to operate. As a first step toward overcoming these existing shortcomings, we developed a cellphone augmented reality (AR) rehabilitation system for stroke rehabilitation. Three serious games for upper limb motor function and cognitive training were developed in which patients move their arms to touch virtual targets generated in the three-dimensional AR environment. Patients received visual and vibration feedback after successfully touching each target.

Stroke patients with upper limb dysfunction performed pilot validation testing with the cellphone AR system. Motor function performance was evaluated based on performance in the AR games and mental state was evaluated via questionnaires self-reporting various aspects of mental state. Results showed that motor performance improved by the last trial as compared to the first trial. In addition, the majority of patients reported that they felt ‘relaxed’ and ‘happy’ while playing the AR rehabilitation games. These results demonstrate the potential of cellphone AR rehabilitation to improve upper-limb motor function and mental state for stroke patients and lay a foundation for a future home-based rehabilitation paradigm.

For details see: Song X, Ding L, Zhao J, Jia J, Shull PB, “Cellphone augmented reality game-based rehabilitation for improving motor function and mental state after stroke,” IEEE International Conference on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN), 2019.