Performance Analysis for Upper Limb Rehabilitation in Non-Immersive and Immersive Scenarios

In recent years, new technologies have contributed to an improvement in the upper limb rehabilitation process as a complement to the conventional therapy received by patients. In this context, technologies should facilitate accurate monitoring of the hands and serve to collect data on patient performance during functional tasks in order to objectively assess the patient’s potential evolution. Mechanical and wearable devices provide greater accuracy in measurements. However, the physical limitations of patients requires the use of hands-free solutions. This article investigates controller-free hand technologies for accurate hand tracking in the Box and Block test (BBT) benchmarked against the real test, validated and standardized in the context of the Hospital Nacional de Parapléjicos (Toledo, Spain). In particular, the performance in the execution of therapeutic exercises is analyzed in three different scenarios: i) physical environment without the use of technologies, ii) non-immersive virtual environment and, finally, iii) fully immersive virtual environment. The results demonstrate the similarity between therapies developed in physical scenarios without the use of technologies, and those carried out in virtual reality-based scenarios.