Sitting to standing and walking therapy for post-stroke patients using virtual reality system

Generally, post-stroke patients suffer physical disorder or paralysis in various level. Common treatment to restore the functionality of the paralyzed limb is by doing motoric therapy. This therapy was done in hospital and was monitored by therapists. However, most of the post-stroke patients choose not to do therapy since their access to hospital is difficult or their motivation to do therapy is low. To overcome the limitations of traditional therapy methods some interactive game-based therapy systems were introduced i.e: AR-therapy and Wii-based movement therapy. Unfortunately, their performance is low due to user ergonomic factor problem. In this study, we proposed a virtual reality system for sitting to standing and walking therapy for post-stroke patients called KOMY. This application is integrated with Kinect technology. Four VR game-based training tasks were adopted from sitting to standing therapy and walking therapy that was done by therapist. These tasks are sitting-standing-sitting, moving leg aside, moving leg freely, and walking. Each task has tree difficulty level. From observation that involving post-stroke patient, elderly healthy people, and therapist, we find that all of them give positive comment to this application. They said that this application not only can be used for therapy of post-stroke patients but also can be used for exercise to elderly. Further, KOMY can be used as alternative for playing therapy and home education therapy.