BCI-VR-Based Hand Soft Rehabilitation System with Its Applications in Hand Rehabilitation After Stroke

The recovery of hand motor function can effectively improve the living standard of stroke patients and relieve their psychological anxiety. Traditional physical rehabilitation training is unable to target the cause of motor function loss; therefore, the rehabilitation effect is not ideal. The objective of this study is to propose a hand rehabilitation system combining brain-computer interface (BCI), soft hand rehabilitation glove and virtual reality (VR), and explore its effectiveness on hand movement disorders in stroke patients. The corresponding comparison experiments conducted on 11 stroke patients demonstrated that the proposed BCI-based hand rehabilitation system can not only mobilize more cerebral cortex to participate in the process of hand motor rehabilitation, but also enhance the muscle strength, muscle tension, and improve the hand motor dysfunction of stroke patients.