A new project for rehabilitation and psychomotor disease analysis with virtual reality support

This paper deals with the project DD1-97, developed inside European Project VREPAR, for the application of a new equipment for psychomotor disease analysis and rehabilitation. The small equipment presents a glove for one finger, with sensors, which detect the movement of the phalanges and the force of the finger tip on a button. Electromyographs are measuring the nervous signals from flexion and extension muscles of the finger. In a portable computer a program examines the signals and elaborates them. The commands for the patient are of 4 kinds: -dynamic motion of the finger; -motion with vision of the finger; -motion without vision of the finger; -control by the images from virtual reality which reproduces the "virtual finger". The results with healthy persons show a distribution in the foreseen range; with disabled person (with Parkinson's disease) show that virtual reality may support rehabilitation for neuromotor problems. The equipment is designed with reference to the most modern ergonomic concepts.