My brother in law sadly suffered a stroke last year and initially lost the use of the whole right side of his body. Whilst his leg has achieved about 75% mobility he is really struggling to get control of his arm and hand, he has a little control but not a lot.
He has been using this device called a mirror box, you sit at a table and you put your hand inside a back box which has a mirror on the side that faces your other (fully working) hand and you look at the mirror and try and move both sets of your fingers at the same time in the same manner. The brain is tricked into thinking the hand inside the box is moving. This has actually had the most success and has enabled him to gain at least some mobility but he is still really struggling to get any basic movement. Anyways, I have been thinking how this sort of therapy could be even more effective in VR with Oculus touch and I think a similar concept would work but because your whole arm is moving in VR it could be like the Mirror box but on steroids for him. Just take the data from one controller and mirror it? Up to now this idea has been on the back burner as he is a glasses wearer and he can’t put contacts in but with Oculus launching clip in prescription lenses this can now become a reality for him.
So I posted this over on /r/Oculus and one of the suggestions was to ask you guys. Are there any apps already available for this sort of thing? And if not are there any talented individuals out there that would like to help me make this a reality for him?
You should look at using the vive tracker puck, it’d be easier to strap onto a wrist. Also you can wear glasses with the vive.
As for building it, you should be able to do this with not a lot of xp. Watch a couple ue4 intro videos to learn basic of ue4. Then watch this video which shows how to make IK for the arms. RMF #01 - UE4 Tutorial - Vive - IK Bones - YouTube
The changes you would need to do would be to mirror the co-ordinates of the one controller on the axis of the head. (seated experience would be good)
You can do it! Alternately post on that guys youtube page, or go to the ue4 reddit community.
I’m interested in collaborating in some way. My day job is working with e-health, primarily working with more traditional applications. Both I personally and the company where I work is interested in VR based health applicastions. I also got a mother with Parkinson’s, another disease where VR has shown some promise as a treatment (or at least relief).