Combining Music Therapeutic Knowledge and the Science of Recovery In Game Design for Rehabilitation

Principal Investigators: Assistant Professor Simon Lui (ISTD)

Collaborators at NTU: Prof Annabel Chen, Dr Andy Khong, Asst Prof PerMagnus Lindborg

External Collaborators: Changi General Hospital, Singapore General Hospital

Research Tracks: Gaming to Enhance Rehabilitation of Stroke Victims

Project Summary: Current engineering techniques for rehabilitation are mainly based on virtual reality and robotics. While showing promising results, these solutions have largely ignored the potential benefits that music confers on rehabilitation, and overlooked the science of recovery (i.e., the knowledge of recovering postural control, mobility, and upper extremity function). We propose to incorporate music therapeutic knowledge and the science of recovery in rehabilitation via computer games. For example, rehabilitation of mobility with beat and rhythm.

Publication: Konstantinos, T, Hamzeen, M. H. M. and Lui, S. 2014. "Motor rehabilitation for stroke patients using musical rhythmic stimulation" 13th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), Seoul

Research Assistants: Hameen Hamzeen, Shuran Jiang

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Computer Games for Rehabilitation

Principal Investigator: Assistant Professor Stanley Kok (ISTD)

External Collaborators: Singapore General Hospital

Research Tracks: Gaming to Enhance Rehabilitation of Stroke Victims

Project Summary:
Combinational Rehabilitative Therapy for Stroke Patients
Many clinical trials to date have focused on separate methodologies to help patients recover from stroke, which include physiotherapy, pharmacotherapy, and virtual-reality games. While each of these methodologies improves patients' motor recovery, very little is known about how each modality improves recovery in magnitude and in duration. The effect of how these modalities interact has also not been evaluated. This projects attempts to assess the effect of a combination of virtual reality games, assistive training with motivation and pharmacotherapy in the recovery of motor function of patients who have recently suffered motor weakness from ischemic stroke. We hypothesize that the benefit of the three interventions in combination will significantly exceed the sum of the individual parts in enhancing the recovery of the patients' motor function. (In collaboration with Singapore General Hospital.)

Rhythmic Biomarkers for Cognitive Impairments
We hypothesize that the inability to process rhythm is a biomarker of cognitive impairments. We shall investigate, via virtual reality games, the correlation between cognitive impairment and the combination of rhythm, melody, visual distraction, and visual cues.

Publication: On the Use of Virtual Reality Based Therapy to Augment Post-Stroke Upper Limb Recovery: A Case Study, Samuel GS, Choo M, WY Chan, S Kok, Ng YS. Singapore Medical Journal, (under review)

Research Assistants: Jianshu Li, Selvaraju Venkatesh, Tom Jeremie Kueh, Raina Lim Hui Min, Randy Ho Pin Yan

Students: Vernon Tan & Cheng Weng Tang (Singapore Polytechnic intern, summer 2014), Clarence Teo Chuan Jie & Immanuella Lim Hao No (SUTD intern, summer 2013)

Stroke Haptic Rehabilitation Using Gaming

Principal Investigator: Assistant Professor Suranga Nanayakkara (EPD)

External Collaborators: St Andrew's Community Hospital

Research Tracks: Gaming to Enhance Rehabilitation of Stroke Victims

Project Summary: Find out more about the project here.

Publications:

  • Roshan Lalintha Peiris, Nuwan Janaka, Deepthika De Silva, Suranga Nanayakkara. 2014. SHRUG: Stroke Haptic Rehabilitation Using Gaming In Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference: Designing Futures, The Future of Design (OzCHI '14) - Accepted for Publication
  • SHRUG: Stroke Haptic Rehabilitation Utilising Gaming - Singapore Provisional Patent (Currently in process)

Postdocs: Roshan Peiris

Student: Priyashi Shridhar

Cloud Gaming Research

Principal Investigators: Assistant Professor Ngai-Man Cheung (ISTD), Assistant Professor Yuen Chau (EPD)

Project Summary: Find out more about the project here.