VR Enhanced Upper Extremity Motor Training for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation: Task Design, Clinical Experiment and Visualization on Performance and Progress

Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability among American adults. Each year over 700,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke, and nearly 500,000 (71%) survive with some form of enduring neurological disability. Upper extremity (UE) motor impairment is a common consequence of stroke and often produces significant challenges for patients as they engage in everyday instrumental activities of daily living [1][2]. Fortunately, research has shown that such lost UE function can be recovered or improved via systematic, repetitive and task-oriented motor training. However, motor-training tasks used for conventional therapy are questionable due to limited capacity to systematically control stimulus presentations and to precisely capture motor response performance in real time. Virtual reality (VR) enhanced motor training is an emerging therapeutic modality that can serve to deliver UE motor training tasks within consistent, yet modifiable simulated functional environments that mimic real world challenges [3][4]. Further, with the use of advanced sensing systems in VR, a large quantity and wide variety of high quality data can be captured to serve the rehabilitation process. As well, game features can be integrated into the VR training to enhance motivation and promote therapeutic focus and adherence.