Technology is being developed that could allow stroke patients to rehabilitate at home

For stroke survivors, restoring fine motor skills such as writing and using utensils is critical to regaining independence and quality of life. But intensive and frequent rehabilitation therapy can be difficult and expensive.

Now, researchers at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering are developing new technology that will allow stroke patients to complete rehabilitation exercises at home by tracking their wrist movements with a simple setup: a smartphone attached to their forearm and an inexpensive Novint Falcon game controller.

The Novint Falcon desktop robot, which is commonly used for video games, can guide the user's hand movements and track the trajectory of its controller. But it cannot directly measure the angle of the user's wrist, which is important information for remote rehabilitation therapists.

In a paper published in the journal Soft Mechatronics and Wearable Systems, the researchers proposed using Falcon in tandem with motion sensors embedded in a smartphone to accurately monitor wrist angles during rehabilitation exercises.

The researchers collected data from a healthy subject who performed tasks with the Falcon, wearing motion sensors on the forearm and hand to capture the true wrist angle. They then trained an algorithm to predict wrist angles based on the sensor data and movements of the Falcon controller. The resulting algorithm can predict wrist angles with over 90% accuracy, a promising first step toward real-time remote feedback therapy in the absence of a personal therapist.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter