Upper limb Motor Rehabilitation Integrated with Video Games Focusing on Training fingers' Fine movements

Several rehabilitation robots for upper limbs have been introduced so far, and their clinical effectiveness has been reported in many studies on recovery of motor abilities in the aged or poststroke patients. These studies, however, found little evidence of improving the functional abilities of patients. Moreover, it has been identified that the main problem of robot-assisted stroke rehabilitation is the lack of motivating and versatile robot-assisted exercises. In this article, we discuss the development of a novel upper limb rehabilitation robot integrated with video games. Our solution is operated via a novel human–computer interface, which stimulates shoulder, elbow movements, and fine finger movements. It is capable to train patients with partially recovered motor control ability. The interface enables therapists to select motivating and engaging motor training exercises represented as video games and specify rehabilitation exercises for patients using a grasping and upper limb interface. The paper presents concept of this novel interface, discusses the implementation issues and demonstrates technical and practical feasibility of our concept through a number of application