Supporting therapists in assessing the quality of arm-hand skill performance

Abstract

For stroke survivors who have lost part of their motor- and functional abilities, it is essential to participate in a rehabilitation process as soon as possible. A lot of progress can be achieved in the first three months after their stroke, but there are still patients who suffer functional disabilities after years. This thesis focuses on creating a tool that will help rehabilitation centers in keeping track of the progress the patients made during and after sessions. During a session, the patients perform activities determined by their capabilities and personal preferences. The therapist goes from patient to patient to check the progress of each patient. The problem here is that the therapist cannot get an objective view of the overall performance of the patient, but simply asks the patient how it is going and looks at a few movements of that patient. The proposed rehabilitation helper tool will collect data about the performed activities and visualize this data in order to help the therapist get an objective overview of the performed motion during the sessions. When a session is done, the gathered information is saved and a log of this performance can be requested.