Augmented Reality Hand Training System for Brain Activation in Elderly People

Abstract

The population of elderly people is growing rapidly over the world Poor sensory input degeneration of musculoskeletal system and central nervous system lead to decreased hand function Research had indicated that hand function which is related to life quality can be improved by finger coordination and force training More feedbacks provided by multi-sensor in the popular technology virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can benefit the user to get the information of motor perception On the other hand increasing brain activation is thought to be a way to keep brain healthy The results in previous study show that finger pressing task can effectively induce brain activation in older adults However the combined VR technology and finger force training tasks for older adults was less mentioned in the literature We want to develop the AR game system integrated with Pressing evaluation and training system (PETS) to investigate the influence of different modes for finger forces tasks on brain activation For the further improvement of the training effect the current study develops an AR application in finger coordination training The technology promotes the motivation by gaming factor and force visualization Fifteen healthy older adults were recruited as subjects in this study Each of them conducted finger pressing task in three modes: LabVIEW program (the original system) PC game and AR game Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system was used to measure the cortical activity of the subjects Sequential pressing task and random pressing were involved in PC game and AR game Only sequential pressing task was in LabVIEW program Higher brain activation of the subjects was observed under hard level of PC and AR game than LabVIEW program In the comparison under hard level higher activation in motor planning region was found in AR than PC game The software of the game provides more different task design to induce brain activation Subjects also gave positive feedbacks for the game The game conducted smoothly and was easy to use for elderly people

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Fong-chin Su (Supervisor)