E-Street for Prevention of Falls of the Elderly an Urban Virtual Environment for Human–Computer Interaction from Lower Limb Movements

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) interfaces have been widely applied in different areas of knowledge, due to the popularization of smartphones and the low cost of immersive devices (VR glasses). In this context, we present a VR solution that reproduces an urban virtual environment (called e-Street), aimed at preventing falls in the elderly, improving spatial orientation/navigation and stimulating the movement of the lower limbs (stationary march) for patients in the physical and neurofunctional recovery process. The user controls the virtual environment with body movements of the lower limbs from ultrasound sensors (positioned in the ankle region) connected to an Arduino board, which communicates via Bluetooth with e-Street (running on a smartphone, inserted in VR glasses). e-Street can be used as (physically active) digital entertainment and provides accessibility to adapted physical activity, considering that the input movement is personalized for each user.