Development of augmented reality rehabilitation games integrated with biofeedback for upper limb

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability in all over the world. This disability greatly impacts the stroke patients' daily life activities. Thus, rehabilitation exercises are essential for post stroke patients to restore their lost functions gradually for daily life activities. Traditional rehabilitation exercises do not motivate the post stroke patients as they are normally humdrum and required expensive equipments. Therefore, this paper presents the development of low --cost motivating webcam colour based visual tracking augmented reality (AR) system with biofeedback for upper-limb post stroke rehabilitation therapy. Augmented Reality is a novel form of human-computer interface which overlay the computer-generated information on the real world environment rather than replaces it. In the developed AR system, two games; Ping Pong Rehab (PPR) and Balloon Collection Rehab (BCR) are created based on game design principle. PPR game trains shoulder and arm muscles during rehabilitation therapy whilst BCR game trains shoulder, arm and forearm muscles. Both games have been built and integrated with Biograph Infiniti software to monitor the muscles' performance. The integrated system will obtain the biofeedback EMG signals from patients that will be utilised for future developments. It allows the patients to monitor their arms and muscles movements in real time on the display screen via low-cost webcam. The system aims for home based rehabilitation system and friendly used by patients themselves. The developed integrated system has tested with able subject and it worked perfectly during the test.