• A BCI-VR Based Rehabilitation System for Upper Limbs Impairments

This article proposes a novel rehabilitation system based on immersive brain-computer interface (BCI) and virtual reality (VR) technology for patients with upper limb impairments caused by stroke or other disorders. The motivation behind this work is to address the limitations of current rehabilitation programs that predominantly focus on isolated motor function restoration. Our proposed system provides a comprehensive at-home rehabilitation approach encompassing motor, cognitive, and emotional deficits, thereby offering a more holistic solution for patients. The research employed a multi-faceted approach combining signal collection and processing, classification, and VR. In the signal processing unit, the raw EEG signals were denoised and processed to extract their wavelet coefficient. The classification unit employed a 2-layer Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) deep learning model that has been trained and tested on EEG data to classify the extracted features into one of seven movement types. Finally, the VR unit rendered the movements in 3D in real-time to close the neurofeedback loop. The model achieved an accuracy of 78.1% for classifying the extracted features into 7 movements. The system incorporates data from EMG sensors to be used as a progress metric to overcome the limitations of the Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) approach. The high accuracy level demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach in accurately recognizing the patient's intention to move their affected limb in real-time with an end-to-end delay of 40 ms. Moreover, since this is an at-home solution, the proposed system offers remote monitoring and a web portal for the therapist to log in and monitor the patient's progress, generate reports, and view other statistics with real-time data sync. The findings present a significant improvement over traditional rehabilitation methods that rely on repetitive and non-specific training, and it highlights the potential of this system to provide tailored and effective rehabilitation programs that can lead to better recovery outcomes for patients with upper limb impairments. This system has the potential to reduce recovery time, improve patients' quality of life, and have significant socio-economic benefits.