Vibrotactile Motion Guidance for Stroke Rehabilitation: A Comparative Study

Stroke is one of the most common causes of death globally and a reason for severe impairments. Many stroke survivors report a loss of muscle strength and, thus, need to regain motor control of their upper limbs with rehabilitation. In some cases, patients may compensate for muscle weakness with harmful compensatory movements using other muscles. We envision that VR-based training can provide multimodal feedback during sensorimotor training to avoid compensatory movements. However, feedback may be hampered by changes in patients' somatosensory system, resulting in both weakened and intensified tactile perceptions. We explored the differences in perception of vibration metaphors for motion guidance between healthy participants and stroke patients and assessed the efficiency of multimodal feedback for the correction of arm trajectory. Multimodal stimuli for trajectory correction benefited the patients but there were also differences in their tactile perception. These patient-specific findings call for the involvement of patients in the design process of haptic rehabilitation devices, following the recommendations of patient-centric healthcare.