Gait VR: Gait rehabilitation in Virtual Reality interactive scenarios

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves, Beatriz dos Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/27484
• topic: Medicine; Gait; Physical rehabilitation; Gamification; Azure Kinect; Realidade virtual -- Virtual reality; Medicina; Marcha; Reabilitação -- Rehabilitation; Gamificação

Medicine and technology are today linked by a huge branch of knowledge sharing. It’s a fact that the exponential growth of information technology in the medical care sector has generated great waves of new discoveries, both in the opportunity of information accessibility, not only for patient’s data but also for health professionals, and in the organization and storage of these data. Periodic gait analysis and monitoring is a very important procedure in the world of rehabilitation and physical therapy and may be able to diagnose diseases early in people with related problems. Motor rehabilitation is most often prescribed and indicated for people at older ages due to the higher muscular, joint and/or neurological changes they present, however it’s also something that can be prescribed in people of all ages, from children to adults. In this dissertation, a system called Gait VR was designed and implemented, which functions as a tool to help all those who need rehabilitation in the lower limbs of their bodies, that somehow conditions the proper functioning of the gait. This system allows patients to continue their treatments in a more motivational way, through the concept of gamification and Virtual Reality. This system was developed using tools such as the Azure Kinect system created by Microsoft, health assistive technology and the Unity 3D platform. A web application was also developed with the objective of supporting the work developed by physical therapists specialized in the area.