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A Kinect-Based System for Lower Limb Rehabilitation in Parkinson’s Disease Patients: a Pilot Study

  • Patient Facing Systems
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Abstract

This work brings together the emerging virtual reality techniques and the natural user interfaces to offer new possibilities in the field of rehabilitation. We have designed a rehabilitation game based on a low cost device (Microsoft KinectTM) connected to a personal computer. It provides patients having Parkinson’s Disease (PD) with a motivating way to perform several motor rehabilitation exercises to improve their rehabilitation. The experiment was tested on seven Parkinson’s Disease patients and results demonstrated significant improvements in completion time score and in the 10 Meters Walk Test score. Nevertheless, additional research is needed to determine if this type of training has a long-term impact. Both the device and protocol were well accepted by subjects, being safe and easy to use. We conclude that our work provides a simple and suitable tool resulting in a more enriching rehabilitation process where motivation is highly encouraged in PD patients. Feedback coming from participants corroborate the hypothesis that the system can be applied not only in clinical rehabilitation centers but at home.

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Acknowledgments

The researching group wants to thank the participants and their caregivers for their generous collaboration in the project. This contribution was partially funded by the Gobierno de Aragón, Departamento de Industria e Innovación, y Fondo Social Europeo “Construyendo Europa desde Aragón”. Authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Prometeo Project, Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación from Ecuador.

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering and Communications, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain

    Guillermo Palacios-Navarro & Pedro Ramos-Lorente

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Systems, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain

    Iván García-Magariño

  3. Departamento de Eléctrica y Electrónica, Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Sangolquí, Ecuador

    Guillermo Palacios-Navarro

  4. Prometeo Project Researcher (SENESCYT), Quito, Ecuador

    Guillermo Palacios-Navarro

Authors
  1. Guillermo Palacios-Navarro
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  2. Iván García-Magariño
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  3. Pedro Ramos-Lorente
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Correspondence to Guillermo Palacios-Navarro.

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Palacios-Navarro, G., García-Magariño, I. & Ramos-Lorente, P. A Kinect-Based System for Lower Limb Rehabilitation in Parkinson’s Disease Patients: a Pilot Study. J Med Syst 39, 103 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-015-0289-0

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