Towards a framework for rehabilitation and assessment of upper limb motor function based on Serious Games

Abstract

Serious Games and Virtual Reality (VR) are being considered at present as an alternative to traditional rehabilitation therapies. In this paper, the ongoing development of a framework focused on rehabilitation and assessment of the upper limb motor function based on serious games as a source of entertainment for physiotherapy patients is described. A set of OpenSource Serious Games for rehabilitation has been developed, using the last version of Microsoft1® Kinect™ as low cost monitoring sensor and the software Unity. These Serious Games captures 3D human body data and it stored them in the patient database to facilitate a later clinical analysis to the therapist. Also, a VR-based system for the automated assessment of motor function based on Fugl-Meyer Assessment Test (FMA) is addressed. The proposed system attempts to be an useful therapeutic tool for tele-rehabilitation in order to reduce the number of patients, time spent and cost to hospitals.