Samenvatting

Rehabilitation after an accident in which an arm or hand is paralyzed, is a long process. Stimulate the brain during this process is important to improve recovery. A common therapy to help patients, is mirror therapy. Originally designed to help people with phantom limb pain it activates mirror neurons to fool the brain into perceiving a paralyzed arm or hand is still moving. Mirror therapy itself consists of multiple stages during which patients gradually regain control over hand and arm functions. During therapy sessions patients take place in a low stimulus environment and try to stimulate the motor areas in their brain by moving their non-impaired hand or arm and focus on its reflection in a mirror. By transferring all of this into a virtual reality environment, gamifications elements can be added to make the therapy more appealing. In addition, it gives patients the opportunity to practice when and wherever they want and, it allows for usage data to be collected, analyzed, and presented to provide meaningful insights. In the project ‘Virtual Reality for Rehabilitation’ we focus on the question how new technologies can facilitate natural interaction in a virtual reality environment and support, optimize and maybe even replace existing rehabilitation processes. For this we are developing a system that support both patients and therapist.
A Conference object of the postponed version of Supporting Health By Technology congres at Enschede, The Netherlands