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Interactive Physiotherapy: An Application Based on Virtual Reality and Bio-feedback

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Abstract

Physiotherapy is a rehabilitation specialty that helps alleviate physical impairments and promotes patient’s mobility and quality of life. It consists of equipment and personnel to provide mechanically forced movements and various exercises that help retain and enhance motor movements in patients suffering from physical injuries or ailments like Parkinson’s disease, Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Stroke, etc. This paper proposes an entertaining way to perform routine exercises, which do not require physical intervention, by packaging them into a Virtual Reality (VR) game environment for such patients to enhance joint and muscle mobility while also providing continuous monitoring of vital signs using Bio-sensors. The game provides various degrees of muscle exercises and Microsoft Kinect (Optical Sensor) is used to track patient’s skeletal movements. Prompt measures are also provided if the data from Bio-sensors (mounted on patient’s body and connected wirelessly to the processing unit) starts to deviate from medically accepted normal ranges. We have developed the prototype using Unity 3D alongwith the VR headset Oculus Rift. The proposed prototype has immense significance in the field of rehabilitation and improving quality of daily life activities for the elderly. While experimenting with the prototype it was found that the used Bio-sensors provided an error no greater than one unit of measurement, which is negligible for the purpose of physiotherapy exercise monitoring considering the span of the normal range values. Moreover, the Kinect provided an error of just 5 mm during skeletal measurements thereby engendering robust deployment of the proposed unit.

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Acknowledgements

This research work has been carried out in Research Lab-1 and Audio Video Conference room IIT Building, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro. The authors are thankful to the DEAN FEECE Professor Dr. Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry and Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro for facilitating this research. We are thankful to Dr. Khursheed Memon, MBBS, Senior Woman Medical Officer (retired), Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Hospital, Jamshoro, Pakistan, a PD patient and Prof. Dr. Bhawani Shankar, Dean FEECE, MUET, Jamshoro for volunteering as test subjects in this research. We are also grateful to the consultants of the patient, Dr. Maimoona Siddiqui, MBBS, FCPS (Neurology), Associate Professor and Head of Department Neurology, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, Dr. Azra Zafar, MBBS, FCPS (Neurology), Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan and Dr. Ismail Abdul Latif Khatri, MBBS, MD (Neurology, USA), Consultant neurologist and stroke specialist at King Abdul Aziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for their guidelines. In addition, we are thankful to Dr. Kashif Ahmed Siddiqui, MBBS, FCPS, Orthopedic Surgeon, Civil Hospital Kotri and Dr. Muhammad Arshad, BSPT, Head of Department, AL SAFA Physiotherapy center Karachi, Pakistan for their valuable input in this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, MUET, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan

    Attiya Baqai, Khuhed Memon, Azam Rafique Memon & Syed Muhammad Zaigham Abbas Shah

Authors
  1. Attiya Baqai
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  2. Khuhed Memon
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  3. Azam Rafique Memon
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Contributions

AB and KM conceived and designed the experiments; KM and ARM designed the game environment and VR app while AB and KM formulated the game methods and developed the software algorithms. AB, KM, ARM and SMZAS performed the experiments. AB and SMZAS analyzed the vital signs, head and neck exercise data while KM and ARM analyzed the limb and arms activity data. AB and KM analyzed the data and contributed in analysis tools. AB, KM, ARM and SMZAS drafted the paper. All the authors have revised and finalized the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Attiya Baqai.

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Baqai, A., Memon, K., Memon, A.R. et al. Interactive Physiotherapy: An Application Based on Virtual Reality and Bio-feedback. Wireless Pers Commun 106, 1719–1741 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-5382-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-5382-5

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