I-BaR: Integrated Balance Rehabilitation Framework

TL;DR

The paper introduces I-BaR, a comprehensive rehabilitation framework that combines multi-sensory feedback and personalized therapy to enhance balance recovery in neurological disorder patients.

Contribution

It presents a novel, integrated balance rehabilitation framework that incorporates objective assessment, individualized therapy, and multi-modal feedback mechanisms.

Findings

Enhanced balance improvement through multi-modal feedback

Personalized therapy increases rehabilitation effectiveness

Framework adaptable to various disability levels

Abstract

Neurological diseases are observed in approximately one billion people worldwide. A further increase is foreseen at the global level as a result of population growth and aging. Individuals with neurological disorders often experience cognitive, motor, sensory, and lower extremity dysfunctions. Thus, the possibility of falling and balance problems arise due to the postural control deficiencies that occur as a result of the deterioration in the integration of multi-sensory information. We propose a novel rehabilitation framework, Integrated Balance Rehabilitation (I-BaR), to improve the effectiveness of the rehabilitation with objective assessment, individualized therapy, convenience with different disability levels and adoption of an assist-as-needed paradigm and, with an integrated rehabilitation process as a whole, i.e., ankle-foot preparation, balance, and stepping phases, respectively. Integrated Balance Rehabilitation allows patients to improve their balance ability by providing multi-modal feedback: visual via utilization of Virtual Reality; vestibular via anteroposterior and mediolateral perturbations with the robotic platform; proprioceptive via haptic feedback.