MIMICS: Multimodal immersive motion rehabilitation of upper and lower extremities by exploiting biocooperation principles

The purpose of this paper is to present the newly founded European research project MIMICS. The hypothesis of this project is that movement training for neurorehabilitation can be substantially improved through immersive and multimodal sensory feedback. The approach is real-time acquisition of behavioral and physiological data from patients and the use of this to adaptively and dynamically change the displays of an immersive virtual reality system, with the goal of maximizing patient motivation. In this project two exemplary systems are complemented for robot-assisted rehabilitation of upper and lower extremities. The systems are able to record multi-sensory data (motion, forces, voice, muscle activity, heart rate, skin conductance etc.) and process this data in real-time to infer the intention of the patient and the overall psycho-physiological state. The computed information will be used to modify immersive virtual reality systems including 3D graphics and 3D sound. Experimental tests on humans are underway with expected basic insights into the presence and motivation of humans. Furthermore, MIMICS technology is entering clinical routine so that large patient populations (e.g. stroke, spinal cord injury) can benefit.