Development and Evaluation of a Kinect-based Rapid Movement Therapy Training Platform for Balance Rehabilitation

With the growing aging and overall population, the demand for healthcare professionals and their burden increases by time. Effective balance recovery reaction is required to prevent falls. The aim of this project is to provide low-cost portable balance training system that trains the two important components of effective balance recovery reaction: faster movement completion time (MT) and larger range of motion (ROM). This is done by a Kinect-based interactive rapid movement therapy training platform for reaching and stepping actions. The platform provides real-time feedback to the patient, generates a report for healthcare professionals to monitor the patient's progress, and can be utilized in patient's home or community centers. A pilot study to test the platform was conducted on seventeen stroke patients and it has shown significant improvement in both MT (faster) and ROM (larger).