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3D or Virtual Reality is used in many applications other than engineering. Indeed, Dassault Systèmes delivers solutions for companies in the Life Sciences industry to accelerate the development of innovative products to improve the conditions of human lives. Nowadays, Virtual Reality has made its way into laboratories and hospitals as a tool for medical research and patient care. For instance, what follows describes how 3DVIA Virtools assists the recovery program of patients severely injured at the hands.

On the initiative of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the “Machines Assisting Rehabilitation from Stroke” (MARS) program aims to facilitate therapeutic training of individuals with hand impairment following stroke. A pneumatically actuated glove, a head/arm tracking and a Head Mounted Display (HMD) compose this relatively simple device, targeted at more severely impaired patients who need to work on spherical grasp and release.

“Stroke is the third leading cause of death, killing 160,000 people each year, and the leading cause of adult disability” in the US. As is the case with many forms of physical rehabilitation, the recovery of hand functioning following a stroke can be arduous. The repetition of rehabilitation exercises can be tedious and many patients discontinue treatment long before optimal results have been achieved. The goal of this project is to design a virtual reality environment that is both appealing and esthetically pleasing and because of these qualities, will keep the user engaged in the tasks of rehabilitation for a better therapeutic experience. Potential advantages of Virtual Reality in rehabilitation include:

• Helping maintain patient’s participation
• Providing variations in grasp, release, and finger individuation tasks
• Assisting & documenting fine & gross motor performance
• Allowing greater repetition than is possible with real objects

The virtual reality environment was inspired by the story of Alice in Wonderland and created thanks to 3DVIA Virtools that enable to create stunning and interactive real-time experiences. The host (March Hare) directs the user (his guest) to perform tasks requiring repetitive grasp-and-release and individuated finger movements in the course of interacting with the numerous animated objects in the scene. The virtual environment has been modeled and developed after discussions with therapists not directly involved in the design.

This project is a success thanks to the interdisciplinary between three institutions: the Electronic Visualization Laboratory - University of Illinois at Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and to its contributors: Daria Tsoupikova1, Randy Vick2, Yu Li1, Nikolay Stoykov3 and Derek Kamper3.