Therapy Easy: A co-designed hand rehabilitation system using Leap motion controller

Abstract

Disability affects over 1 billion people across the globe [1]. About 190 million people in this demographic aged 15 or older require healthcare services due to having significant difficulties in functioning [1]. Upper limb disability is one such issue that needs to be addressed as it leads to lower quality of living. Pandemic has been a major barrier towards accessible healthcare services. With the move towards a digitized world, it is necessary for the healthcare sector to adopt appropriate responses to the changing needs. Upper limb rehabilitation services are one such unit of the healthcare sector that can benefit from modern technologies and solutions. We have proposed a system called “Therapy Easy” which is a flexible therapy system to carry out rehabilitation at the comfort of the user. The tasks in the system incorporate movements that are similar to those performed while carrying out activities of daily living (ADL). The system tracks the hand movements of the user using a Leap motion controller (LMC). Heuristic evaluation was conducted to test the system for usability issues.