Short-term learning of the vestibulo-ocular reflex induced by a custom interactive computer game.

Retinal image slip during head rotation drives motor learning in the rotational vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and forms the basis of gaze-stability exercises that treat vestibular dysfunction. Clinical exercises, however, are unengaging, cannot easily be titrated to the level of impairment, and provide neither direct feedback nor tracking of the patient's adherence, performance, and progress. To address this, we have developed a custom application for VOR training based on an interactive computer game. In this study, we tested the ability of this game to induce VOR learning in individuals with normal vestibular function, and we compared the efficacy of single-step and incremental learning protocols. Eighteen participants played the game twice on different days. All participants tolerated the game and were able to complete both sessions. The game scenario incorporated a series of brief head rotations, similar to active head impulses, that were paired with a dynamic acuity task and with a visual-vestibular mismatch (VVM) intended to increase VOR gain (single-step: 300 successful trials at ×1.5 viewing; incremental: 100 trials each of ×1.13, ×1.33, and ×1.5 viewing). Overall, VOR gain increased by 15 ± 4.7% (mean ± 95% CI, P < 0.001). Gains increased similarly for active and passive head rotations, and, contrary to our hypothesis, there was little effect of the learning strategy. This study shows that an interactive computer game provides robust VOR training and has the potential to deliver effective, engaging, and trackable gaze-stability exercises to patients with a range of vestibular dysfunctions.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study demonstrates the feasibility and efficacy of a customized computer game to induce motor learning in the high-frequency rotational vestibulo-ocular reflex. It provides a physiological basis for the deployment of this technology to clinical vestibular rehabilitation.

Contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation video game therapy for hand rehabilitation after stroke: a randomized controlled trial.

PURPOSE: To estimate the effect of integrating custom-designed hand therapy video games (HTVG) with contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation (CCFES) therapy. METHODS: Fifty-two stroke survivors with chronic (>6 months) upper limb hemiplegia were randomized to 12 weeks of CCFES or CCFES + HTVG. Treatment involved self-administration of technology-mediated therapy at home plus therapist-administered CCFES-assisted task practice in the lab. Pre- and post-treatment assessments were made of hand dexterity, upper limb impairment and activity limitation, and cognitive function. RESULTS: No significant between-group differences were found on any outcome measure, and the average magnitudes of improvement within both groups were small. The incidence of technical problems with study devices at home was greater for the CCFES + HTVG group. This negatively affected adherence and may partially explain the absence of effect of HTVG. At end-of-treatment, large majorities of both treatment groups had positive perceptions of treatment efficacy and expressed enthusiasm for the treatments. CONCLUSION: This study makes an important contribution to the research literature on the importance of environmental factors, concomitant impairments, and technology simplification when designing technology-based therapies intended to be self-administered at home. This study failed to show any added benefit of HTVG to CCFES therapy.Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03058796).

Contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation (CCFES) is an emerging therapy for upper limb rehabilitation after stroke that is designed, in part, to be self-administered at home.While movement-soliciting video games have shown promise in rehabilitation, this study failed to show a significant added benefit of integrating CCFES with hand therapy video games.For technology-based therapies intended to be self-administered at home, this study brings to light the importance of making every component of rehabilitation technology as user friendly and trouble-free as possible.For technology-based therapies intended to be self-administered at home, this study brings to light the importance of assuring that the home environment is conducive to home-based therapy.

Distally-referred surface electrical nerve stimulation (DR-SENS) for haptic feedback.

Objective.This study's objective is to understand distally-referred surface electrical nerve stimulation (DR-SENS) and evaluates the effects of electrode placement, polarity, and stimulation intensity on the location of elicited sensations in non-disabled individuals.Approach.A two-phased human experiment was used to characterize DR-SENS. In Experiment One, we explored 182 electrode combinations to identify a subset of electrode position combinations that would be most likely to elicit distally-referred sensations isolated to the index finger without discomfort. In Experiment Two, we further examined this subset of electrode combinations to determine the effect of stimulation intensity and electrode position on perceived sensation location. Stimulation thresholds were evaluated using parameter estimation by sequential testing and sensation locations were characterized using psychometric intensity tests.Main Results.We found that electrode positions distal to the wrist can consistently evoke distally referred sensations with no significant polarity dependency. The finger-palm combination had the most occurrences of distal sensations, and the different variations of this combination did not have a significant effect on sensation location. Increasing stimulation intensity significantly expanded the area of the sensation, moved the most distal sensation distally, and moved the vertical centroid proximally. Also, a large anodic-leading electrode at the elbow mitigated all sensation at the anodic-leading electrode site while using symmetric stimulation waveforms. Furthermore, this study showed that the most intense sensation for a given percept can be distally referred. Lastly, for each participant, at least one of the finger-palm combinations evaluated in this study worked at both perception threshold and maximum comfortable stimulation intensities.Significance.These findings show that a non-invasive surface electrical stimulation charge modulated haptic interface can be used to elicit distally-referred sensations on non-disabled users. Furthermore, these results inform the design of novel haptic interfaces and other applications of surface electrical stimulation based haptic feedback on electrodes positioned distally from the wrist.

Hands to Hexapods, Wearable User Interface Design for Specifying Leg Placement for Legged Robots.

Specifying leg placement is a key element for legged robot control, however current methods for specifying individual leg motions with human-robot interfaces require mental concentration and the use of both arm muscles. In this paper, a new control interface is discussed to specify leg placement for hexapod robot by using finger motions. Two mapping methods are proposed and tested with lab staff, Joint Angle Mapping (JAM) and Tip Position Mapping (TPM). The TPM method was shown to be more efficient. Then a manual controlled gait based on TPM is compared with fixed gait and camera-based autonomous gait in a Webots simulation to test the obstacle avoidance performance on 2D terrain. Number of Contacts (NOC) for each gait are recorded during the tests. The results show that both the camera-based autonomous gait and the TPM are effective methods in adjusting step size to avoid obstacles. In high obstacle density environments, TPM reduces the number of contacts to 25% of the fixed gaits, which is even better than some of the autonomous gaits with longer step size. This shows that TPM has potential in environments and situations where autonomous footfall planning fails or is unavailable. In future work, this approach can be improved by combining with haptic feedback, additional degrees of freedom and artificial intelligence.

Home-Based Functional Electrical Stimulation-Assisted Hand Therapy Video Games for Children With Hemiplegia: Development and Proof-of-Concept.

We describe the development and three case reports of a home-based intervention for children with hand hemiplegia that integrates custom video games with contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation (CCFES). With CCFES, stimulated opening of the more-affected hand is modulated by volitional opening of the less-affected hand. Video games that solicit goal-oriented, skill-requiring movement have shown promise for treating hemiplegia, but they have not previously been combined with electrical stimulation in children. Three children ages 8, 9, and 11 with moderate-to-severe hand hemiplegia were assigned six weeks of therapy in lab and at home. The goal was to determine if children could tolerate 9 lab treatment sessions and administer up to 7.5 hrs/wk of CCFES video game therapy at home. The feasibility of this intervention for home use was assessed by device logs, end-of-treatment interviews, and motor function/impairment assessments. With caregiver help, the children were all able to attend 9 lab sessions and built up to 7.5 hrs/wk of therapy by week 3. They averaged 5-7 hrs/wk of home intervention overall. Motor outcomes improved for all three participants at treatment end, but mostly regressed at 4-weeks follow-up. Individual improvements at treatment end exceeded minimum detectable or clinically important thresholds for Assisting Hands Assessment, Fugl-Meyer Assessment, and Melbourne Motor Assessment 2. We found preliminary indications that CCFES-integrated video game therapy can provide a high dose of hand motor control therapy at home and in the lab. Improvements in motor outcomes were also observed, but more development and study is needed.

Ability of people with post-stroke hemiplegia to self-administer FES-assisted hand therapy video games at home: An exploratory case series.

INTRODUCTION: This article describes the development and initial clinical testing of an innovative home-based treatment for upper extremity hemiplegia that integrates contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation with hand therapy video games. METHODS: We explored the ability of seven participants with moderate-to-severe hand impairment to self-administer 12 weeks of contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation video game therapy at home for 10 h/week and in-lab with a therapist for four h/week. Clinical suitability was assessed by device usage logs, qualitative surveys, and clinical motor and cognitive outcomes. RESULTS: Three participants completed the study with > 95% compliance and four did not. Factors linked to incompletion included development of trigger finger in the non-paretic hand, acceptance of a new full-time job, residence relocation, and persistence of drowsiness from anti-spasticity medication. Those who completed the treatment perceived qualitative benefits and experienced gains in motor and cognitive outcomes. CONCLUSION: Individuals with moderate-to-severe chronic post-stroke upper extremity hemiplegia can self-administer contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation video game therapy for up to 90 min/day at home. We also identified social and physiological factors that may preclude its use for daily home treatment. Further studies are warranted and are in progress to estimate treatment effect and optimal dose of this intervention.

Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation for Motor Restoration in Hemiplegia.

This article reviews the most common therapeutic and neuroprosthetic applications of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) for upper and lower extremity stroke rehabilitation. Fundamental NMES principles and purposes in stroke rehabilitation are explained. NMES modalities used for upper and lower limb rehabilitation are described, and efficacy studies are summarized. The evidence for peripheral and central mechanisms of action is also summarized.

Stroke Rehabilitation Using Virtual Environments.

This review covers the rationale, mechanisms, and availability of commercially available virtual environment-based interventions for stroke rehabilitation. It describes interventions for motor, speech, cognitive, and sensory dysfunction. Also discussed are the important features and mechanisms that allow virtual environments to facilitate motor relearning. A common challenge is the inability to translate success in small trials to efficacy in larger populations. The heterogeneity of stroke pathophysiology has been blamed, and experts advocate for the study of multimodal approaches. Therefore, this article also introduces a framework to help define new therapy combinations that may be necessary to address stroke heterogeneity.

Human-arm-and-hand-dynamic model with variability analyses for a stylus-based haptic interface.

Haptic interface research benefits from accurate human arm models for control and system design. The literature contains many human arm dynamic models but lacks detailed variability analyses. Without accurate measurements, variability is modeled in a very conservative manner, leading to less than optimal controller and system designs. This paper not only presents models for human arm dynamics but also develops inter- and intrasubject variability models for a stylus-based haptic device. Data from 15 human subjects (nine male, six female, ages 20-32) were collected using a Phantom Premium 1.5a haptic device for system identification. In this paper, grip-force-dependent models were identified for 1-3-N grip forces in the three spatial axes. Also, variability due to human subjects and grip-force variation were modeled as both structured and unstructured uncertainties. For both forms of variability, the maximum variation, 95 %, and 67 % confidence interval limits were examined. All models were in the frequency domain with force as input and position as output. The identified models enable precise controllers targeted to a subset of possible human operator dynamics.

Effect of Visuo-Motor Co-location on 3D Fitts' Task Performance in Physical and Virtual Environments.

Given the ease that humans have with using a keyboard and mouse in typical, non-colocated computer interaction, many studies have investigated the value of co-locating the visual field and motor workspaces using immersive display modalities. Significant understanding has been gained by previous work comparing physical tasks against virtual tasks, visuo-motor co-location versus non-colocation, and even visuo-motor rotational misalignments in virtual environments (VEs). However, few studies have explored all of these paradigms in context with each other and it is difficult to perform inter-study comparisons because of the variation in tested motor tasks. Therefore, using a stereoscopic fish tank display setup, the goal for the current study was to characterize human performance of a 3D Fitts' point-to-point reaching task using a stylus-based haptic interface in the physical, co-located/non-colocated, and rotated VE visualization conditions.Five performance measures - throughput, initial movement error, corrective movements, and peak velocity - were measured and used to evaluate task performance. These measures were studied in 22 subjects (11 male, 11 female, ages 20-32) performing a 3D variant of Fitts' serial task under 10 task conditions: physical, co-located VE, non-colocated VE, and rotated VEs from 45-315° in 45° increments. HYPOTHESES: All performance measures in the co-located VE were expected to reflect significantly reduced task performance over the real condition, but also reflect increased performance over the non-colocated VE condition. For rotational misalignments, all performance measures were expected to reflect highest performance at 0°, reduce to lowest performance at 90° and rise again to a local maximum at 180° (symmetric about 0°). RESULTS: All performance measures showed that the co-located VE condition resulted in significantly lower task performance than the physical condition and higher mean performance than the non-colocated VE condition, but the difference was not statistically significant. Also, rotation misalignments showed that task performance were mostly reduced to minimums at 90°, 135°, and 225°. We conclude that co-located VEs may not significantly improve point-to-point reaching performance over non-colocated VEs. Also, visual rotations of ±45° affected throughput, efficiency, peak velocity, and initial movement error, but the number of corrective movements were not affected until ±90°.

Contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation for stroke rehabilitation.

Contralaterally controlled functional electrical stimulation (CCFES) is an innovative method of delivering neuromuscular electrical stimulation for rehabilitation of paretic limbs after stroke. It is being studied to evaluate its efficacy in improving recovery of arm and hand function and ankle dorsiflexion in chronic and subacute stroke patients. The initial studies provide preliminary evidence supporting the efficacy of CCFES.

Effect of Visuo-Haptic Co-location on 3D Fitts' Task Performance.

Given the ease that humans have with using a keyboard and mouse in typical, non-colocated computer interaction, many studies have investigated the value of colocating the visual field and haptic workspaces using immersive virtual reality (VR) modalities. Significant understanding has been gained by previous work comparing physical tasks against VR tasks, visuo-haptic co-location versus non-colocation, and even visuo-haptic rotational misalignments in VR. However, few studies have explored all of these paradigms in context with each other and it is difficult to do inter-study comparisons because of the variation in tested motor tasks. Therefore, the goal for the current study was to characterize human performance of Fitts' point-to-point reaching task - an established test of manual performance - in the physical, co-located/non-colocated VR, and rotated VR visualization conditions. A key finding was the significant decrease observed in end-point error for tasks performed in a co-located virtual reality environment. The results also showed cyclic performance degradations due to rotational visuo-haptic misalignments that were consistent with trends reported by the literature.

A detection scheme for frontalis and temporalis muscle EMG contamination of EEG data.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are highly susceptible to noise from electromyogram (EMG) signals of the frontalis and temporalis muscles. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a new method for detecting frontalis and temporalis muscle EMG contamination in EEG signals based on recent findings on topographic and spectral characteristics of cranial EMG.