Rehabilitation of handwriting skills in stroke patients using interactive games

Abstract

This paper describes an interactive application that aims to support the rehabilitation of handwriting skills in people that suffer from paralysis after a stroke. The purpose of the application is to make the rehabilitation of handwriting skills fun and engaging. Four platformindependent games with adjustable levels of difficulty were created in order to target varying levels of skills. The application also features a performance history, audio-visual feedback, and posture reminders. It was evaluated with medical staff and patients from the Hoensbroeck Rehabilitation Centre in the Netherlands. The initial results indicated that the games are more motivating and fun than traditional pen and paper exercises. The feedback received from therapists supports our claim that the games are a useful addition to the rehabilitation of handwriting.

A comparison of treatment effects after sensor- and robot-based task-oriented arm training in highly functional stroke patients

“…goal dependent training load) and motor learning (e.g., over-learning, feedback, and exercise variability) and offers exercises of increasing difficulty levels. T-TOAT has been implemented in sensor-based [9] and robotic rehabilitation [7] systems, that are used in the clinical trials reported in his paper; and also was implemented in a system for stroke patients to relearn writing [10].…”

Effects of task-oriented robot training on arm function, activity, and quality of life in chronic stroke patients: a randomized controlled trial

“…Several authors [21-24] have combined the task-oriented training method using real life objects with sensor-based technologies for the rehabilitation of arm hand performance after stroke. Results from pilot studies show an improvement of arm hand function [21], arm hand activity [21,25], and health related quality of life [21] after stroke.…”

Integrated Solution of a Back Office System for Serious Games Targeted at Physiotherapy

“…Sheep Herding, Labyrinth, Letter Tracing, and Writing are four games embedded in an interactive application used to support, in a motivating and fun way, the rehabilitation of writing skills in people suffering from paralysis after stroke. The Back Office of the application allows therapists to adjust various parameters of the games, for example, the difficulty level of the game, adapting the exercises to the needs and interests of the patient [9].…”