Design and Qualitative Evaluation of Tactile Devices for Stroke Rehabilitation
From: University of Southampton (UK)

Rehabilitation environments combining virtual reality with everyday motor
tasks can promote recovery from neurological illness, such as stroke. Tactile
devices, providing physical stimulation to the skin, may improve motor
retraining. While many tactile devices have been reported, there is a
distinct paucity of studies evaluating how they are perceived. This
multidisciplinary research has investigated three tactile devices (vibration
motors, a motor-driven ‘squeezer’, and shape memory alloys) for providing a
realistic sensation of static interaction with virtual objects. These devices
have been iteratively redesigned and qualitatively evaluated with healthy
human participants. This paper presents the devices, their evaluation, and
iterative redesign. 

Read the paper at:
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21802/