Virtual Reality To Aid Stroke TherapyVirtual Reality To Aid Stroke Therapy

Research into better rehabilitation methods for stroke patients is linking virtual-reality technology with physical therapy done via the Web.

Someday, patients may be able to exercise at home, monitored remotely by therapists. They would put on a glove with rings surrounding their fingers and pistons connected to the rings. The force-feedback gloves would be linked to a PC connected with a database that stores real-time information on the exercises.

Patients would view the exercises on the PC, which would display a numerical score of their progress as they move each finger. The pistons can act as a spring and require patients to exert more and more force to push them down, or they can actively push patients' fingers straight to open their hands, an ability lost as a result of a stroke. Results are shown on the PC monitor as a virtual-reality image so patients can measure their progress, and the scores are updated in real time as they're stored in the remote database. Researchers developed an adaptive targeting algorithm to set performance levels. As patients improve, they're pushed to higher target levels to perform even better.

The therapy will help patients who've already gone through rehab and have limited hand mobility, says Grigore Burdea, a professor and director of the Human-Machine Interface Laboratory at Rutgers University's Center for Advanced Information Processing in Piscataway, N.J. "There's tremendous potential here to have the therapy monitored at a distance and to have it done at home," he says. "Patients see improvement and look forward to treatment.'' A recent trial showed the unconventional therapy works.