Recovery of Arm Control for Stroke Patients using Depth Sensor with a Game-Based Approach

Abstract

This paper presents a rehabilitation system for arm control recovery in stroke patients by using a depth sensor. The objective is to support the rehabilitation process for arm and hand control via a jigsaw puzzle game. The game is designed as a color matching game. The patient has to grasp and move the jigsaw pieces as seen on the computer monitor to the corresponding colors in the specified places. There are two sizes of the game, including the 2x2 and the 3x3 game. Each game size has two levels that are the ‘Easy’ and the ‘Hard’ level. The patient’s arm movement is not exceed the distance of 18 and 30 centimeters for the ‘Easy’ and the ‘Hard’ level, respectively. The system collects the patient’s gaming data in the last three times. So, the physical therapist can assess the patient’s progress by using the data. The system consists of 3 modules, including the Device Module, the Game Module, and the Data Collection Module. The system has been tested with a real patient. The result shows that after the training phase he can play the developed game successfully. After more improvement, the developed system can be used to support the rehabilitation activity with more attractive to the patients that are related to the arm and hand movement.