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Virtual reality platform for upper limb motor rehabilitation

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This technology is a virtual reality (VR) platform able to design, analyze, and train motor tasks to improve postural and upper limb movements.

Unmet Need: Unconstrained rehabilitation approaches for postural and upper limb motor control

Deficits in postural and upper limb motor control significantly contribute to physical disabilities, restricting normal mobility and a patient’s ability to perform daily tasks. While physical medicine and rehabilitation approaches exist for such cases, these approaches are limited to training constrained limb movements, which do not translate well to the more natural, unconstrained state of day-to-day activities. As such, it is imperative to develop rehabilitation methods that allow patients to practice unconstrained mobility to better prepare them for daily tasks.

The Technology: Virtual reality platform for unconstrained training of upper body motor tasks

This technology is a virtual reality (VR) platform that can be used to train complex, unconstrained motor tasks. The platform is capable of virtually replicating goal-oriented motor tasks that better replicate natural bodily motions for the purposes of rehabilitation training. This platform has been used to measure and analyze the performance of healthy adults in several motor tasks has been shown to improve motor function in individuals following practice compared to baseline.

Applications:

  • Physical rehabilitation tool for patients with physical injuries or recovering from surgery
  • Treatment for those with physical disabilities
  • Method for tracking and scoring loss of motor control for diagnosis and monitoring of motor neuron diseases
  • Training tool for athletes
  • Training tool for surgeons and other fields requiring fine motor control
  • Analysis tool for the study of natural physical movement for robots (humanoids) and animation

Advantages:

  • Expandable platform for the training of a wide range of motor control
  • Unconstrained range of motion better replicates natural motions and is more comfortable for the patient
  • Better prepares patients for real-world tasks

Lead Inventor:

Sunil K. Agrawal, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

Related Publications:

Tech Ventures Reference: