Ferramenta de biofeedback visual para auxílio na reabilitação do controle muscular em pessoas com hemiparesia nos membros inferiores

Abstract

Hemiparesis is a condition that affects muscular control on one of the sides of the body and commonly appears after a stroke. Rehabilitation treatments for patients consists of physiotherapeutic exercises. The purpose of this work is the development of a serious game capable of assisting health professionals in the creation of rehabilitation exercises to improve muscular control in people with hemiparesis in the lower limbs, as well as providing patients with a fun and entertaining game that can potentially improve muscular control in affected regions.There are two input devices used to play the game. The first is a force plate developed by student Marcos Dinis Lavarda as part of his master’s degree research and the second is a low-cost webcam. The camera acts as a sensor capturing the patient’s members coordinates obtained with the help of colored markers and digital image processing techniques, especially color segmentation.The game offers real time visualization of the centers of pressure of both the upper and lower plates in the force plate, thus providing visual biofeedback to the patient, which can immediately become conscious of his eventual impairments and work towards improving his balance and muscular control. Additionally, the game serves a data gathering mechanism, logging sensor readings and creating a report of the patient’s progress through the completed exercises, which can later be analysed and compared with previous reports in order to evaluate quantitatively any possible improvement.