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Session: Rehabilitation
Session starts: Friday 27 January, 14:00
Presentation starts: 14:15
Room: Room 530

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Laura Marchal-Crespo (TU Delft)

Abstract:
The possibility of using robotic devices and virtual reality to support neurorehabilitation is promising since robots can support high-intensity training in a motivating virtual environment. However, recent meta-analyses concluded that traditional robotic training yields inferior outcomes to conventional therapy, especially in activities of daily living (ADL). This is not surprising, since current rehabilitation robots only assist to perform rather artificial movements that are abstractly visualized on 2D screens while somatic (tactile and proprioceptive) feedback is underutilized. Screens lack depth cues that might result in non-physiological movements and increase cognitive load. The absence of somatosensory information from the interaction with virtual objects might also limit the transfer of the gained skill into ADL. Head-mounted displays (HMDs) might provide a more naturalistic movement visualization as they preserve eye-hand coordination by showing an avatar −with immersive VR (IVR)− or the real body −with augmented reality (AR) [1]. Providing somatosensory information through robotic haptic rendering might also enhance motor learning and transfer [2]. We run two experiments to evaluate: 1) The impact of different visualization technologies −namely IVR HMD, AR HMD, and a 2D screen− on movement quality, cognitive load, motivation, and usability on 20 old adults (> 59 y.o.) and four neurologic patients who performed a reaching task in 3D space and a parallel cognitive; and 2) The effect of haptic rendering and assistance (arm weight support) from an upper limb exoskeleton on motor learning and skill transfer of a dynamic task (i.e., inverting a pendulum) on 40 healthy participants. Old participants and patients performed straighter, shorter, and smoother movements when visualizing their movements with both HMDs compared to the screen. No differences were found in cognitive load or motivation between the different visualizations. Importantly, participants rated the IVR as highly usable. In the second experiment, we found that training with haptic rendering enhanced motor learning and skill transfer, while weight support hampered learning. Taking together, incorporating HMDs and haptic rendering into motor training offers a more naturalistic movement training that enhances movement quality, motor learning, and skill transfer. However, further work is needed to provide robotic assistance without hampering motor learning. [1] N. Wenk et al. “Effect of immersive visualization technologies on cognitive load, motivation, usability, and embodiment.” Virtual Reality, 2021. [2] Ö. Özen, et al. “Haptic rendering modulates task performance, physical effort and movement strategy during robot-assisted training.” Proc. IEEE RAS EMBS Int. Conf. Biomed. Robot. Biomechatronics 2020, pp.1223–1228.