Background: Effective neurological rehabilitation requires long term assessment and treatment. The rapid progress of virtual reality-based assistive technologies and tele-rehabilitation has increased the potential for self-rehabilitation of various neurological injuries under clinical supervision.
Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a fuzzy inference mechanism for a smart mobile computing system designed to support in-home rehabilitation of patients with neurological injury in the hand by providing an objective means of self-assessment.
Methods: A commercially available tablet computer equipped with a Bluetooth motion sensor was integrated in a splint to obtain a smart assistive device for collecting hand motion data, including writing performance and the corresponding grasp force. A virtual reality game was also embedded in the smart splint to support hand rehabilitation. Quantitative data obtained during the rehabilitation process were modeled by fuzzy logic. Finally, the improvement in hand function was quantified with a fuzzy rule database of expert opinion and experience.
Results: Experiments in chronic stroke patients showed that the proposed system is applicable for supporting in-home hand rehabilitation.
Conclusions: The proposed virtual reality system can be customized for specific therapeutic purposes. Commercial development of the system could immediately provide stroke patients with an effective in-home rehabilitation therapy for improving hand problems.
Keywords: Hand rehabilitation; fuzzy logic; intelligent system; neurological patient.