فادي شهاب احمد
A stroke can cause upper limb (UL) dysfunction that limits movement. Consequently, the patient cannot practice daily life activities normally, recovery after a stroke is necessary, and the patient must undergo rehabilitation to restore UL function as much as possible. Active rehabilitation techniques can hasten a motor system recovery but with significant time, like conventional rehabilitation that includes the conventional intervention (CI), which uses traditional methods in the recovery process. Virtual reality (VR) rehabilitation that includes VR intervention (VRI) which employs VR technology, is an attractive method that shows promising results for stroke recovery that can improve the effectiveness of current rehabilitation procedures in terms of the quality of recovery methods and the ability to obtain satisfactory results in a short time. The work of this thesis was conducted at the Al-Hamza Specialized Center for stroke patients’ Rehabilitation in Baghdad/Iraq, where 30 stroke patients participated in the evaluation of the proposed system. All patients underwent CI that used the real game of grasping and throwing five balls through three levels. After a rest period, they underwent VRI that used the same game but in a VR environment. Times for grasping and throwing the balls were measured for the real and VR games, and then, these two times were compared for conventional and VR techniques to find the effectiveness of the proposed VR rehabilitation system All patients had their disability assessed using the stroke assessment scales, which were the Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Upper Extremity (FMA-UE) and Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT). These assessment scales were used before and after the experiment (playing the games) to measure how much they had benefited from them. The goal of this thesis is to present a VR-based rehabilitation system, that includes building a VR game with three gradual difficulty levels to suit all cases of disability in stroke patients, The proposed system gives the therapist the ability to monitor patient interactions in the real and virtual world simultaneously. The result showed that the dysfunction UL for the participant patients was improved by using VRI effectively compared with CI; for conventional rehabilitation, the gain in FMA-UE and WMFT before and after the experiment was (0.65) points for FMA-UE and (1.485) seconds for WMFT. When using the VR rehabilitation, the gain in FMA-UE was (3.75) points, and the gain for WMFT was (7.637) seconds. Patients were able to reduce the times of grasping (TG) and the times of throwing (TT)in the VRI by about five times the CI. Depending on the results of the FMA-UE and WMFT and the times of TG and TT, the medical staff and specialists of the Al-Hamza rehabilitation center which includes the doctors who specialize in rehabilitation confirmed that VRI was more valuable and effective in improving the upper motor system of the patients after the stroke. Medical rehabilitation centers can utilize the work of this thesis to rehabilitate stroke patients in Iraq, especially as they lack such modern technology. The use of VR has spread in all hospitals and medical centers worldwide. Hence the proposed system is considered an opportunity for patients to improve their disability in the ULs by using the newest technology in the world, which can save effort and time for the patient through the recovery process compared with conventional techniques
