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. 2023 Mar 25;23(7):3463.
doi: 10.3390/s23073463.

Patient-Therapist Cooperative Hand Telerehabilitation through a Novel Framework Involving the Virtual Glove System

Giuseppe Placidi  1 , Alessandro Di Matteo  2 , Daniele Lozzi  2 , Matteo Polsinelli  3 , Eleni Theodoridou  1
Affiliations

Patient-Therapist Cooperative Hand Telerehabilitation through a Novel Framework Involving the Virtual Glove System

Giuseppe Placidi et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Telerehabilitation is important for post-stroke or post-surgery rehabilitation because the tasks it uses are reproducible. When combined with assistive technologies, such as robots, virtual reality, tracking systems, or a combination of them, it can also allow the recording of a patient's progression and rehabilitation monitoring, along with an objective evaluation. In this paper, we present the structure, from actors and functionalities to software and hardware views, of a novel framework that allows cooperation between patients and therapists. The system uses a computer-vision-based system named virtual glove for real-time hand tracking (40 fps), which is translated into a light and precise system. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that it gives the therapist quantitative, not only qualitative, information about the hand's mobility, for every hand joint separately, while at the same time providing control of the result of the rehabilitation by also quantitatively monitoring the progress of the hand mobility. Finally, it also offers a strategy for patient-therapist interaction and therapist-therapist data sharing.

Keywords: hand rehabilitation; hand surgery; hand tracking; rehabilitation framework; rehabilitation pipeline; stroke; telerehabilitation; virtual glove.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Hardware and software architectures of the framework. The hardware consists of the rehabilitation system with the VG and a server for data storage and for hosting the software. The software consists of a GUI for the Therapist and one for the Administrator. The persons involved in the process are the Therapist (or Therapists), the Patient, and the System Administrator.
Figure 2
Figure 2
VG final implementation, including sensor assembly (a), an NUC-based driving unit (b), and a video screen for the active interaction (c).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Skeletal hand model (skin contour is reproduced for reference) in which each joint is represented by a green sphere.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Binary switch approach: depending on the orientation of the hand, one sensor data are used, while the others are discarded; black arrows indicate the palm normal vector.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Use a case diagram presenting the functionalities and actors involved to the framework’s usage.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Software architecture diagram representing all the systems involved: Rehabilitation System, Server System, VG, Therapist System, and Administrator System.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Swim lane diagram showing the pipeline’s execution. The pipeline describes the rehabilitation process, from the beginning when the Patient is suggested to use the VG, until data are processed and shared among therapists. Obviously, the process can be continued by the Therapist, assigning a new task or updating the task’s difficulty, or restarting with a new Patient.
Figure 8
Figure 8
VG Data-flow pipeline. Here, one can see (a) the Patient performing a task, (b) the generated hand model, (c) the Therapist’s interface for data analysis and visualization, and (d) created plots presenting joint movement. The associated colors and the respective legend in (d) are irrelevant for the purpose of this paper: they just serve to show the general structure of the report.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This research was funded by the GÉANT Innovation Programme 2022 grant number: SER-22-119, and from Italian Ministry of University and Research (Dottorato di Ricerca innovativo a caratterizzazione industriale n.2, PON 2014-2020).