Mixed Reality-Based Smart Occupational Therapy Personalized Protocol for Cerebellar Ataxic Patients

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Occupational therapy (OT) is crucial for patient care, particularly for ataxic patients, but traditional methods lack virtual reality integration guidelines.
• Current OT procedures for ataxia are efficient but could be enhanced with technology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose Hybrid Smart Rehabilitation (HSR) using mixed reality (MR) to overcome limitations of traditional OT for ataxic patients.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of MR-HSR in assessing patient performance and aiding rehabilitation.

Main Methods:

• Developed MR-HSR in Unity with Holographic Remoting for real-time intervention.
• Collected hand trajectory data from eight ataxic patients and eight healthy subjects performing a reaching and grabbing task.
• Analyzed new performance variables and administered the Trust in Automation questionnaire.

Main Results:

• Patients expressed trust in the MR-HSR system and its potential for rehabilitation.
• Statistically significant differences were observed in 'total time' and 'sway area' of hand trajectories.
• A classifier was developed using trajectory variables, indicating potential for objective assessment.

Conclusions:

• Patient-specific MR-HSR serves as an integrative tool for assessing ataxic patients' conditions.
• New quantitative variables analyzed by MR-HSR can be combined with the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA).
• This approach could form the basis of a new index for evaluating ataxia progression.