A Smart Affective Virtual Environment Rehbilitation System for Traumatic Brian Injuries

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of impairments of cognitive ability and subsequent motor-behavioral difficulties. Successful brain damage rehabilitation requires an accurate and effective training and assessment, and must provide a tool for both cognitive and physical rehabilitation procedures. Hstar proposes a Smart Affective Virtual Environment Rehabilitation (SAVER) system for TBI patients. The SAVER system will 1) support intervention and adaptation through user interface devices and monitoring systems, 2) provide sets of clinical training scenarios designed to stimulate neurological and functional recovery after brain injury, 3) create training scenarios that allow for rapid prototyping, thus encouraging therapists to experiment with the proposed technology and to assess benefits to patients, 4) simulate ‘one-to-one training scenarios’ within a highly interactive and engaging environment to meet each patient’s specific needs, and 5) support methods for quantifying and assessing performance and progress of rehabilitation. No rehabilitation system currently exists that would meet all of these needs. Our primary innovation in SAVER system is affective computing module based progressive cognitive and physical rehabilitation training for TBI patients using advanced user interfaces. The SAVER system will allow TBI patients regain cognitive and fundamental motor skills through advanced VE based training scenarios.