Virtual environments for motor fine skills rehabilitation with force feedback

Abstract

In this paper, it is proposed an application to stimulate the motor fine skills rehabilitation by using a bilateral system which allows to sense the upper limbs by ways of a device called Leap Motion. This system is implemented through a human-machine interface, which allows to visualize in a virtual environment the feedback forces sent by a hand orthosis which was printed and designed in an innovative way using NinjaFlex material, it is also commanded by four servomotors that eases the full development of the proposed tasks. The patient is involved in an assisted rehabilitation based on therapeutic exercises, which were developed in several environments and classified due to the patient’s motor degree disability. The experimental results show the efficiency of the system which is generated by the human-machine interaction, oriented to develop human fine motor skills.