An Interactive Upper-Limb Post-Stroke Rehabilitation System Integrating BCI-based Attention Monitoring and Virtual Reality Feedback

Abstract

In this study, an interactive upper-limb stroke rehabilitation system integrating motion tracking device (MTD), electroencephalogram (EEG) device, and virtual reality (VR) game is proposed to assist patients for performing upper-limb rehabilitation treatment and save the patients' rehabilitation information, such as hand movement trajectory and angle of wrist pronation and supination. During the treatment, the system creates the database with digitalized information to facilitate data analysis to assess the progress and effectiveness of patient rehabilitation. In this study, to enhance patient's interest in performing rehabilitation treatment by using the interactive VR game, and to real-time monitor the patient's attention through the EEG device. When the patient's attention is relatively lower, there will be visual and auditory stimulations. There are 12 post-stroke patients who are in Brunnstrong stage from the third to the fifth to participate in the clinical experiment of this study, and these patients were assigned to three groups (A to C). Group A is traditional rehabilitation (Control). Group B perform the interactive VR game using MTD. Group C perform the interactive VR game using MTD and BCI-based attention-monitoring EEG device. The results show that the rehabilitation effectiveness of group C is better than groups A and B.