Patient Experience in Adjunct Controller-Free Hand Tracking Virtual Reality Tasks for Upper-Limb Occupational Therapy Rehabilitation

Authors: Andrea Mc Kittrick, BSc (Hons) Curr. Occ, MSc Hand Therapy¹, Mathilde R Desselle, Meng², Antonio Padilha Lanari Bo, PhD³, Bianca Zhang, BEng³, Sue Laracy, BOccThy (Hons)¹, and Giovanna Tornatore, BOccThy⁴

Journal of Patient Experience

Abstract

Benefits of immersive virtual reality rehabilitation (VRR) include increased motivation and improved transfer of skills to real-world tasks. The introduction of Oculus hand-tracking technology allowed for the development of VRR games that do not need virtual reality (VR) hand controllers. This is beneficial as participants with upper limb impairments/injuries may have difficulties with/be limited in using/manipulating VR hand controllers. In this project, a VRR game was developed and evaluated. The aim of this study was to determine patient experience when using VRR as an adjunct to upper-limb rehabilitation. N  =  20 participants receiving upper limb rehabilitation completed a series of VRR tasks by playing the “smoothie bar” VRR game. After the completion of the VRR tasks, the participant experience was evaluated via a study-specific questionnaire. Key findings include 95% agreement that VRR tasks were fun and engaging and 75% agreed that VR tasks will be helpful to include in their rehabilitation. Hands-tracking VRR has a high potential to be used as an adjunct intervention in upper limb rehabilitation.