Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> The recent addition of force and touch feedback to virtual reality simulations has enhanced their realism. Research on haptics interfaces is now extended to physical modeling of contact surfaces, object hardness, surface deformation, etc. This is especially needed when dextrous manipulation of virtual objects is concerned. The paper describes a VR system using a haptic glove (Rutgels Master II) connected to a PC workstation, and a new method for modeling virtual hand haptic interactions. An application example presented here is an orthopedic rehabilitation library. The exercises in this library involve interactions with dynamic objects and physical modeling of plasticity. <s> BIB001 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> OBJECTIVE ::: To assess the impact of exercise and virtual reality (VR) on the cognitive rehabilitation of persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI). ::: ::: ::: DESIGN ::: Before-after trial assessed cognitive function after a 4-week intervention program. A random allocation crossover assessed changes in reaction and movement times after a single bout of VR exercise and a no-exercise control condition. ::: ::: ::: SETTING ::: Brain injury rehabilitation unit in Edinburgh, Scotland. ::: ::: ::: PATIENTS ::: (1) Four-week intervention: a consecutive sample of 13 suitable TBI adults were compared to control populations (n > 25) of previous TBI patients of similar age, severity, and time postinjury. (2) Single-bout intervention: a consecutive sample of 13 suitable adults with moderate TBI, 6.29 to 202.86 weeks postinjury. ::: ::: ::: INTERVENTION ::: Nonimmersive VR exercise. ::: ::: ::: MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES ::: (1) Tests of attention, information processing, learning, and memory. (2) Reaction and movement times. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: After the 4-week intervention patients performed significantly better than controls on the digit symbol (p < .01). verbal (p < .01), and visual learning tasks (p < .05). Significant improvements in reaction times (p < .01) and movement times (p < .05) were gained following a single bout of VR exercise. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: Exercising in a virtual environment offers the potential for significant gains in cognitive function. <s> BIB002 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> This paper describes the development and evaluation of a haptic interface designed to provide access to line graphs for blind or visually impaired people. Computer-generated line graphs can be felt by users through the sense of touch produced by a PHANToM force feedback device. Experiments have been conducted to test the effectiveness of this interface with both sighted and blind people. The results show that sighted and blind people have achieved about 89.95% and 86.83% correct answers respectively in the experiment. <s> BIB003 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> A common measure of the quality or effectiveness of a virtual environment (VE) is the mount of presence it evokes in users. Presence is often defined as the sense of being there in a VE. There has been much debate about the best way to measure presence, and presence researchers need, and have sought, a measure that is reliable, valid, sensitive, and objective.We hypothesized that to the degree that a VE seems real, it would evoke physiological responses similar to those evoked by the corresponding real environment, and that greater presence would evoke a greater response. To examine this, we conducted three experiments, the results of which support the use of physiological reaction as a reliable, valid, sensitive, and objective presence measure. The experiments compared participants' physiological reactions to a non-threatening virtual room and their reactions to a stressful virtual height situation. We found that change in heart rate satisfied our requirements for a measure of presence, change in skin conductance did to a lesser extent, and that change in skin temperature did not. Moreover, the results showed that inclusion of a passive haptic element in the VE significantly increased presence and that for presence evoked: 30FPS > 20FPS > 15FPS. <s> BIB004 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the adaptations that have been done to VividGroup's Gesture Xtreme projected VR scenarios in order to facilitate their use in neurological rehabilitation. First, the scenarios and the adaptation (control of the type, speed, location and direction of all stimuli) are briefly described. The advantages and limitations of the adapted VR system as a rehabilitation tool are presented. Next, initial results and two examples of case studies, one a patient following stroke and one who requires balance training as a result of complete spinal cord injury, are used to illustrate applications of this VR system to rehabilitation. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. <s> BIB005 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> We present a wireless virtual reality system and a prototype full body Tai Chi training application. Our primary contribution is the creation of a virtual reality system that tracks the full body in a working volume of 4 meters by 5 meters by 2.3 meters high to produce an animated representation of the user with 42 degrees of freedom. This - combined with a lightweight (<3 pounds) belt-worn video receiver and head-mounted display - provides a wide area, untethered virtual environment that allows exploration of new application areas. Our secondary contribution is our attempt to show that user interface techniques made possible by such a system can improve training for a full body motor task. We tested several immersive techniques, such as providing multiple copies of a teacher's body positioned around the student and allowing the student to superimpose his body directly over the virtual teacher None of these techniques proved significantly better than mimicking traditional Tai Chi instruction, where we provided one virtual teacher directly in front of the student. We consider the implications of these findings for future motion training tasks. <s> BIB006 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> The paper describes the HOMERE system: a multimodal system dedicated to visually impaired people to explore and navigate inside virtual environments. The system addresses three main applications: preparation for the visit of an existing site, training for the use of a blind cane, and ludic exploration of virtual worlds. The HOMERE system provides the user with different sensations when navigating inside a virtual world: a force feedback corresponding to the manipulation of a virtual blind cane, a thermal feedback corresponding to the simulation of a virtual sun, and an auditory feedback in spatialized conditions corresponding to the ambient atmosphere and specific events in the simulation. A visual feedback of the scene is also provided to enable sighted people to follow the navigation of the main user. HOMERE has been tested by several visually impaired people who were all confident about the potential of this prototype. <s> BIB007 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> This study used an open clinical trial to test a cognitive-behavioral treatment for public-speaking anxiety that utilized virtual reality as a tool for exposure therapy. Treatment was completed by participants (n=10) meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV criteria for social phobia, or panic disorder with agoraphobia in which public speaking was the predominantly feared stimulus. Treatment was conducted by a licensed psychologist in an outpatient clinic. Treatment consisted of eight individual therapy sessions, including four sessions of anxiety management training and four sessions of exposure therapy using a virtual audience, according to a standardized treatment manual. Participants completed standardized self-report questionnaires assessing public-speaking anxiety at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up. Participants were asked to give a speech to an actual audience at pre- and post-treatment. Results showed decreases on all self-report measures of public-speaking anxiety from pre- to post-treatment, which were maintained at follow-up (n=8; all P<.05). Participants were no more likely to complete a speech post-treatment than at pre-treatment. This study provides preliminary evidence that a cognitive-behavioral treatment using virtual reality for exposure to public speaking may reduce public-speaking anxiety and suggests that further research with a controlled design is needed. Depression and Anxiety 22:156–158, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. <s> BIB008 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> Textbook of neural repair and rehabilitation / , Textbook of neural repair and rehabilitation / , کتابخانه دیجیتال جندی شاپور اهواز <s> BIB009 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> Previous research has shown that computer-based tasks can motivate people with autism and encourage learning. As a computer-based medium, Virtual Environments (VEs) offer a potentially useful tool for social skills training for people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, there are some concerns over whether people with ASDs can understand, use and interpret the technology appropriately. This paper adopts a qualitative case-study approach to report observations of, and comments from, two adolescent boys with ASDs, gathered during a series of sessions using a virtual cafe and bus environment. Although there were signs of repetitive behaviours, literal interpretation of the scenes, and that the VEs were treated as not having real-world relevance, these were not the dominant modes of responding. Instead, participants seemed to interpret the scenes meaningfully and appreciated the opportunities to discuss appropriate social responses with a facilitator sitting alongside. They enjoyed using the VEs and provided specific examples of how the VEs had helped, or could help, them in the real world. This gives encouraging support for the idea that VEs can be used and interpreted meaningfully by at least some students with ASDs. The paper concludes with some considerations for the future development of VEs for members of this population. <s> BIB010 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> We introduce a force-field haptic rendering method for converting visual data to haptic data. The method includes a novel framework to convert specialized 3D map models into force fields. We generate the final force fields by using structure from motion and implicit surface approximation algorithms. Visually impaired people then can learn to navigate with these maps, using off-the-shelf haptic <s> BIB011 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> Difficulties in understanding symbolism have been documented as characteristic of autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). In general, virtual reality (VR) environments offer a set of potential advantages for educational intervention in ASD. In particular, VR offers the advantage, for teaching pretend play and for understanding imagination, of it being possible to show these imaginary transformations explicitly. This article reports two case studies of children with autism (aged 8:6 and 15:7, both male), examining the effectiveness of using a VR tool specifically designed to work on teaching understanding of pretend play. The results, confirmed by independent observers, showed a significant advance in pretend play abilities after the intervention period in both participants, and a high degree of generalization of the acquired teaching in one of them. <s> BIB012 </s> Virtual Reality and Assistive Technologies: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> BackgroundStroke is a frequent cause of adult disability that can lead to enduring impairments. However, given the life-long plasticity of the brain one could assume that recovery could be facilitated by the harnessing of mechanisms underlying neuronal reorganization. Currently it is not clear how this reorganization can be mobilized. Novel technology based neurorehabilitation techniques hold promise to address this issue. Here we describe a Virtual Reality (VR) based system, the Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS) that is based on a number of hypotheses on the neuronal mechanisms underlying recovery, the structure of training and the role of individualization. We investigate the psychometrics of the RGS in stroke patients and healthy controls.MethodsWe describe the key components of the RGS and the psychometrics of one rehabilitation scenario called Spheroids. We performed trials with 21 acute/subacute stroke patients and 20 healthy controls to study the effect of the training parameters on task performance. This allowed us to develop a Personalized Training Module (PTM) for online adjustment of task difficulty. In addition, we studied task transfer between physical and virtual environments. Finally, we assessed the usability and acceptance of the RGS as a rehabilitation tool.ResultsWe show that the PTM implemented in RGS allows us to effectively adjust the difficulty and the parameters of the task to the user by capturing specific features of the movements of the arms. The results reported here also show a consistent transfer of movement kinematics between physical and virtual tasks. Moreover, our usability assessment shows that the RGS is highly accepted by stroke patients as a rehabilitation tool.ConclusionsWe introduce a novel VR based paradigm for neurorehabilitation, RGS, which combines specific rehabilitative principles with a psychometric evaluation to provide a personalized and automated training. Our results show that the RGS effectively adjusts to the individual features of the user, allowing for an unsupervised deployment of individualized rehabilitation protocols. <s> BIB013
A virtual environment (VE) gives the illusion of being there to the user by evoking the sense of presence BIB004 . A VE can be created using a desktop, a frontmounted projection screen with a display or a projected computer display across up to six walls of a room, including floor and ceiling. Users can have the system respond to their actions via different interfaces like a mouse, joystick, Wiimote, and more. Update of a VE can also be associated with realistic controls such as users body movement and walking speed. With stereoscopic vision and a wide field-of-view, users feel themselves immersed in the VE. Integration of force feedback haptic devices can make virtual objects tangible to the users; users can interact with the virtual objects via grasping and squeezing activities while force feedback is felt by them BIB001 . This immersive nature of VEs along with the inherent proprioceptive cues of human beings create illusions to users as though they are in a VE other than where they really are. Thus a * E-mail: syasmin@ewu.edu VE can be an effective source of motivation, enjoyment, and playfulness. A VE can offer a unique, interactive, and customizable platform that would otherwise be too expensive or not easily implementable in the real world (for example, exploring a fantasy castle, playing with dolphins, and more). A VE is not subjected to the dangers and limitations of the real world. Applications have been developed where users were able to swim with sharks in a VE BIB005 . A VE can offer an unlimited set of versatility to keep the interests awake. As navigation in a VE is very often associated with different kinds of games, entertainment, or similar activities that require a limited amount of physical exercise or mental awareness or both, a VE can easily be tailored to the needs of different rehabilitation issues specific to different patients. For example, a stroke can cause brain tissue damage and motor loss resulting in partial paralysis. Restoring sensation and movement to the paralyzed limb requires development of new neural pathways through functional reorganization of the surviving motor neurons BIB009 . Unless the patient is actively practicing the movement of a paretic limb, the brain will not undergo substantial plasticity to fully activate the new neural pathways as a substitute to the damaged one  . Research results demonstrate that an early and intensive practice produces better results and faster return to normal life BIB013 . A VE can provide a better sense of engagement BIB002 . Users can be forgetful of fatigue and be induced to perform exercise for a longer period of time. VR-based rehabilitation exercises work as an enhanced brain-machine interface to connect brain tissue to task. A VE is reusable an infinite number of times. Training duration and intensity can easily be manipulated as per the users requirements to meet a certain goal. This can provide the user with immediate visual feedback about their gait and deviations from correct posture by incorporating a self-avatar of the patient and the trainer avatar at the same time BIB006 ). This can offer better judgment of progress and lesser use of manpower. Physical therapists are also able to create or customize games for use by individual patients. Thus a VE can provide a better scope of intervention. Very often mobility impairments are found to have a negative impact on patients mental health, such as, depression, attention deficit, forgetfulness, and more. As phys-ical health improves, cognitive empowerment takes place. A VE has been used for cognitive rehabilitation of autistic children BIB010 BIB012 . A VE is safe for the treatment of different kinds of phobias or hallucinations (Tarr and Warren 2002; Suárez, Santamara, and Claudio 2013; BIB008 . A haptic VE can lead the blind individuals to better accessibility, exploration, and understanding of surrounding objects and environments BIB003 BIB007 ; BIB011 ; Lahav and Mioduser 2000; Yasmin and Panchanathan 2016). As discussed above, VR-based rehabilitation systems can address different types of disabilities. Section 2 briefly touches on the target groups and classifies VEs on the basis of different available modalities. Section 3 to Section 5 survey and analyze different VR-based rehabilitation approaches as developed around different types of VEs as per the classification in Section 2. In a VE, several factors can negatively affect users' gait, physiological response, and presence. Thus Section 6 discusses some drawbacks of VEs. Section 7 summarizes the different approaches to VR-based rehabilitation along with the existing drawbacks while Section 8 concludes the survey.