Real-Time Performance Analysis of Hand Writing Rehabilitation Exercise in Haptic Virtual Reality

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has been applied to many medical fields. Rehabilitation with VR technologies is one of the emerging research directions. In this paper, a hand writing training exercise is described to train the user to improve the lost hand writing ability in the haptic virtual environment. In the exercise, PHANTOM Premium 1.0 is used for writing English characters as a virtual pen, and also for giving the user force feedbacks as a guidance tool. The approach can be used to guide user's hand movement on the right track of the predefined trajectory according to the real-time guiding force. The user with hand dysfunctions can be trained for precise hand movements through this exercise. The performance is analyzed in real-time and the practicing results are saved in the database. The figures of guiding force including the force magnitude and direction, the correctness of the practicing, and the completion of the exercise are plotted with MatLab and shown to the user in real-time. The saved results in the database can be used for the future analysis and supervision from the specialist.