Upper Limb Post Stroke Rehabilitation Performance Monitoring Tools using Optical Mouse

Abstract

Stroke is one of the deadly disease in Malaysia; one of top five major causes of death and one of the top ten causes for hospitalization in Malaysia. Every year 40,000 people diagnosed with this deadly disease. Stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked. Blood supply essential nutrient and oxygen to the brain. Insufficient blood supply will cause brain cell damages and lead to lose control of human body. Weakness or lost ability to upper limb or arm is one of the main symptoms for the stroke patients. Normally only one part of the body will affected. Upper limb post stroke rehabilitation objective is to help stroke survivor to move their hand and arm as effective as their non-affected hand. Arm/ hand skate is one of the popular equipment used to help the stoke survivor to regain their upper and/or forearm limb strength and endurance of the patients. The main movement direction was horizontal from left to right and reversed. In order to get the benefit of this exercise, stroke survivor has to repeat this exercise for several time, this will lead to boredom and motivation lost. Another disadvantage is there is no indicator for showing degree of the rehabilitation. Objective of this study is to design a computer application using combination of C++, Open GL and optical mouse which can be used to evaluate the stroke survivor hand and arm speed movement. Information obtain from this application can used by the therapist and stroke survivor to monitor their rehabilitation activity progress and effectiveness.