Balance Rehabilitation Game using Primesense Camera

This is the Tux Racer game adapted for use with the Primesense camera as a tool to capture user activity for implementation in Virtual Rehabilitation for motor impairments. Following a stroke, brain injury or other form of neurological disorder, a person can naturally interact with game content as part of their physical therapy. This particular prototype application focuses on exercising balance ability by encouraging a user to shift their weight from side to side to "drive" the penguin down a ski slope while collecting targets. We can assign any specific body gesture or movement as an action to interact in this game--in this case, shifting from side to side to control direction and leaning forward or backwards for speed control. Complex movement integration can be trained with this simple yet fun game application. The vision is that patients will be more motivated to do therapy when it is embedded in a game context. We believe that such low cost sensing systems for tracking human movement will revolutionize how motor rehabilitation will be done in the future. This work is being conducted at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies and is part of our NIDRR-supported Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) that focuses on optimizing participation through technology. This RERC aims to address the rehabilitation needs of those aging with a disability through the use of innovative Virtual Reality and game-based systems. Key investigators on this work include Belinda Lange and Skip Rizzo in partnership with Evan Suma, Mark Bolas, Brad Newman and Kevin Chang. Carolee Winstein and Phil Requejo are the USC RERC Directors and more information on this RERC can be found at: http://www.isi.edu/research/rerc/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Primesense
• Skip
• MotorRehabPrototype
• TuxRacer