Virtual therapeutic environments with haptics: An interdisciplinary approach for developing post-stroke rehabilitation systems

Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability among American adults. Each year, nearly 400,000 people survive but suffer from neurological disability. Patients' motivation and engagement during rehabilitation therapy is important because the amount, type and intensity of practice available to the patients during the recovery process is critical for the functional recovery after stroke. In the current paper we will introduce a National Institutes of Health-supported interdisciplinary project, involving researchers from the fields of Communication, Cell Neurobiology, Computer Science, Psychology, and Physical Therapy, to develop virtual therapeutic environments for post-stroke recovery. The purpose of the project is to develop virtual environments (VEs) that include different levels of haptic sensory feedback and to evaluate the effectiveness of these applications for neurorehabilitation training. The current system development, including applications using the PHANToM and CyberGrasp (haptic devices) as well as future research plans are discussed.