Measurement of joint motion: A guide to goniometry

This paper reviews technical and clinical impact of the Microsoft Kinect in physical therapy and rehabilitation. It covers the studies on patients with neurological disorders including stroke, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, and MS as well as the elderly patients. Search results in Pubmed and Google scholar reveal increasing interest in using Kinect in medical application. Relevant papers are reviewed and divided into three groups: (1) papers which evaluated Kinect’s accuracy and reliability, (2) papers which used Kinect for a rehabilitation system and provided clinical evaluation involving patients, and (3) papers which proposed a Kinect-based system for rehabilitation but fell short of providing clinical validation. At last, to serve as technical comparison to help future rehabilitation design other sensors similar to Kinect are reviewed.

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A Review on Technical and Clinical Impact of Microsoft Kinect on Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

Microsoft Kinect, a low-cost motion sensing device, enables users to interact with computers or game consoles naturally through gestures and spoken commands without any other peripheral equipment. As such, it has commanded intense interests in research and development on the Kinect technology. In this paper, we present, a comprehensive survey on Kinect applications, and the latest research and development on motion recognition using data captured by the Kinect sensor. On the applications front, we review the applications of the Kinect technology in a variety of areas, including healthcare, education and performing arts, robotics, sign language recognition, retail services, workplace safety training, as well as 3D reconstructions. On the technology front, we provide an overview of the main features of both versions of the Kinect sensor together with the depth sensing technologies used, and review literatures on human motion recognition techniques used in Kinect applications. We provide a classification of motion recognition techniques to highlight the different approaches used in human motion recognition. Furthermore, we compile a list of publicly available Kinect datasets. These datasets are valuable resources for researchers to investigate better methods for human motion recognition and lower-level computer vision tasks such as segmentation, object detection and human pose estimation.

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A Survey of Applications and Human Motion Recognition with Microsoft Kinect

Revealing the theoretical basis of gamification: A systematic review and analysis of theory in research on gamification, serious games and game-based learning

In this paper, we present the development and validation of an instrument for measuring users’ gameful experience while using a service. Either intentionally or unintentionally, systems and service ...

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Gameful Experience Questionnaire (GAMEFULQUEST): an instrument for measuring the perceived gamefulness of system use

A shortest-path algorithm finds a path containing the minimal cost between two vertices in a graph. A plethora of shortest-path algorithms is studied in the literature that span across multiple disciplines. This paper presents a survey of shortest-path algorithms based on a taxonomy that is introduced in the paper. One dimension of this taxonomy is the various flavors of the shortest-path problem. There is no one general algorithm that is capable of solving all variants of the shortest-path problem due to the space and time complexities associated with each algorithm. Other important dimensions of the taxonomy include whether the shortest-path algorithm operates over a static or a dynamic graph, whether the shortest-path algorithm produces exact or approximate answers, and whether the objective of the shortest-path algorithm is to achieve time-dependence or is to only be goal directed. This survey studies and classifies shortest-path algorithms according to the proposed taxonomy. The survey also presents the challenges and proposed solutions associated with each category in the taxonomy.

A Survey of Shortest-Path Algorithms.

Rehabilitative therapy is usually very expensive and confined to specialized rehabilitation centers or hospitals, leading to slower recovery times for corresponding patients. Therefore, there is a high demand for the development of technology-based personalized solutions to guide and encourage patients towards performing online rehabilitation program that can help them live independently at home. This paper introduces an innovative e-health framework that develops adaptive serious games for people with hand disabilities. The aim of this work is to provide a patient-adaptive environment for the gamification of hand therapies in order to facilitate and encourage rehabilitation issues. Theoretical foundations (i.e., therapy and patient models) and algorithms to match therapy-based hand gestures to navigational movements in 3D space within the serious game environment have been developed. A novel game generation module is introduced, which translates those movements into a 3D therapy-driven route on a real-world map and with different levels of difficulty based on the patient profile and capabilities. In order to enrich the user navigation experience, a 3D spatio-temporal validation region is also generated, which tracks and adjusts the patient movements throughout the session. The gaming environment also creates and adds semantics to different types of attractive and repellent objects in space depending on the difficulty level of the game. Relevant benchmarks to assess the patient interaction with the environment along with a usability and performance testing of our framework are introduced to ensure quantitative as well as qualitative improvements. Trial tests in one disability center were conducted with a total number of five subjects, having hand motor controls problems, who used our gamified physiotherapy solution to help us in measuring the usability and users' satisfaction levels. The obtained results and feedback from therapists and patients are very encouraging.

A therapy-driven gamification framework for hand rehabilitation

In this paper, we present an interactive multimedia environment that can be used to effectively complement the role of a therapist in the process of rehabilitation for disabled children. We use Microsoft Kinect 3D depth sensing camera with the online Second Life virtual world to record rehabilitation exercises performed by a physiotherapist or a disabled child. The exercise session can be played synchronously in Second Life. The physical activities of the users are synchronized with their virtual counterparts in the Second Life. The exercises can be recorded as well and made available for downloading to facilitate offline playback. A disabled child can follow the exercise at home in the absence of the therapist, since the system can provide visual guidance for performing the exercise in the right manner. Using the proposed system, parents at home can also assist the disabled child in performing therapy sessions in the absence of a therapist. Following the suggestions of therapists, the developed prototype can track several gestures of children who have mobility problems. Using a single Kinect device, we can capture high resolution joint movement of the body, without the need for any complicated hardware set up. The initial joint-based angular measurements show promising potential of our prototype to be deployed in real physiotherapy sessions.

Multimedia interactive therapy environment for children having physical disabilities

The proliferation of networked home appliances, coupled with the popularity of low cost gesture detection sensors has made it possible to create smart home environments where users can manipulate devices of daily use through gestures. In this paper, we present a multi-sensory environment that allows a disabled person to control actual devices around the house that are presented to her in a mixed reality environment, as part of occupational therapy exercises. An analytical engine processes the motion data collected by gesture recognition sensors, measures recovery metrics, such as joint range of motion and speed of movement, etc. and presents the results to the therapist or the patient in the form of graphs and exercise statistics. We have incorporated intuitive 2D and 3D user interfaces into the environment to make the therapy experience more engaging and immersive for the disabled people. From the multimedia occupational therapy exercise data analysis, a therapist can get determine the ability of a patient to perform daily life activities without the help of others.

A Multi-Sensory Gesture-Based Occupational Therapy Environment for Controlling Home Appliances

In this paper, we present a serious game-based framework for providing live feedback to a patient performing a rehabilitation therapy for the purpose of assisting a patient in correct therapeutic steps and obtaining high quality therapy data for further analysis. The game environment uses forward kinematics to receive the live sensory data from two 3D motion tracking sensors and uses inverse kinematics to analyze the sensory data stream in real-time. A subject performs a rehabilitation therapy prescribed by the physician and using both forward and inverse kinematics the system validates the angular and rotational positions of the joints with respect to the correct therapeutic posture and provides live feedback to the subject. As a proof of concept, we have developed an open source web-based framework that can be easily adopted for inhome therapy, without the assistance of a therapist. Finally, we share our initial test result, which is encouraging.

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Mohamed Abdur Rahman

Papers

A Survey of Shortest-Path Algorithms.

A therapy-driven gamification framework for hand rehabilitation

Multimedia interactive therapy environment for children having physical disabilities

A Multi-Sensory Gesture-Based Occupational Therapy Environment for Controlling Home Appliances

Adding Inverse Kinematics for Providing Live Feedback in a Serious Game-Based Rehabilitation System