Virtual reality offers the opportunity to engage the participant in challenging rehabilitation exercises, proposed in the shape of serious games. Modern VR technologies can further enhance usability, allowing the participant to seamlessly interact with VR environment with bare hands, without need of external tracking systems and complex setups. In children neurorheabilitation engagement can promote motivation and attention to the exercise, two key elements for effectiveness of the rehabilitation process. In this work we developed a rehabilitation system composed of three serious games in immersive VR, with motor exercises targeting the upper limb and trunk in children with Cerebral Palsy. The participant plays in the role of a wizard apprentice, called to cast spells, to prepare potions and to ride a magic eagle. These game scenarios involve coordinated motor functions related to trajectory tracking, pick-and-place with prono-supination, and trunk balance. The presented pilot study (12 CP children, 24 sessions), focuses on the feasibility assessment of the rehabilitation method, then, it allows a more in depth analysis on the adaptation and progress of the exercise parameters through data recorded during the whole treatment. The study shows that immersive VR games are a feasible approach in rehabilitation procedures, with positive results regarding acceptability, retention, adherence to the planned exercises and absence of adverse effects in the long-term use. They also show promising results in improvements of motor functions, although a direct comparison with a control group was not included in the study.

Hand exoskeletons are increasingly used to support post-stroke reach-to-grasp, yet most intention-detection strategies trigger assistance from local hand events without considering the synergy between proximal arm transport and distal hand shaping. We evaluated whether proximal arm kinematics, alone or fused with EMG, can predict flexor and extensor digitorum activity for synergy-aligned hand assistance. We trained nine models per participant: linear regression (LINEAR), feedforward neural network (NONLINEAR), and LSTM, each under EMG-only, kinematics-only (KIN), and EMG+KIN inputs. Performance was assessed by RMSE on test trials and by a synergy-retention analysis, comparing synergy weights from original EMG versus a hybrid EMG in which extensor and flexor digitorum measure signals were replaced by model predictions. Results have shown that kinematic information can predict muscle activity even with a simple linear model (average RMSE around 30% of signal amplitude peak during go-to-grasp contractions), and synergy analysis indicated high cosine similarity between original and hybrid synergy weights (on average 0.87 for the LINEAR model). Furthermore, the LINEAR model with kinematics input has been tested in a real-time go-to-grasp motion, developing a high-level control strategy for a hand exoskeleton, to better simulate post-stroke rehabilitation scenarios. These results suggest the intrinsic synergistic motion of go-to-grasp actions, offering a practical path, in hand rehabilitation contexts, for timing hand assistance in synergy with arm transport and with minimal setup burden.

This research presents a new glove-shaped wearable device, designed to deliver torsional cues on the wrist as a tactile guidance tool. The device integrates four tactile modules that apply modulated shallow torque to the anatomical wrist articulation, providing torsional hints for both ulnar–radial deviation and flexion–extension degrees of freedom (DOF). The aim of this research is to evaluate whether this new type of stimulation can convey accurate directional cues on 2-DOF wrist movements, with the main target application as a guidance and support tool in virtual motor rehabilitation. Effectiveness was tested in virtual reality (VR) serious games designed to exercise wrist movements through a virtual navigation task. The glove-shaped haptic device was introduced to guide the user by directional cues provided through the shallow-torques approach. Results showed that the tactile sensations were effective in conveying accurate directional cues, reliably guiding subjects’ wrist movements on 2-DOF. This research highlights the potential of a compact, non-bulky glove-shaped device for providing clear directional cues at the wrist across 2-DOF. The shallow-torque approach, combining the natural interaction of force feedback with hardware simplicity and lightness closer to vibrotactile devices, has the potential of scalability on other body segments, and shows promise for applications in rehabilitation, postural guidance, and virtual interaction.