Implementation of the Kinect sensor and Leap motion for distance study of motor skills in Parkinson's disease
Nastaran Hosseinpour · Chalmers Publication Library (Chalmers University of Technology) · 2016
Monitoring the progression of patients, in this case Parkinson's patients, and their response to treatment is really important both for patients and health-care professionals.Traditional assessment is done sporadically by trained clinicians.Developing technologies to assess symptoms in a cheaper and more frequent way is an important factor that would considerably improve treatment and follow-up for these patients.Depth cameras are a good way to provide such tools.The Kinect device is mostly used for video-games, but it can also be used for serious purposes.The Kinect sensor provides 3D position of body joints, which can be used to determine how a person moves.The Leap motion is another type of technology, which represents an entirely new way to interact with computers to assess fine scale movements of the hands and fingers.This thesis investigates the potential of the Kinect and Leap motion sensors for measuring and assessing movement information.This information will be used for developing and testing an ICT tool for both assessment and rehabilitation of motor skills in Parkinson's patients.The system was tested with real patients to demonstrate to what extent this technology is applicable for providing useful information for both assessment and rehabilitation.Results show that the version of the Kinect sensor used in this study can monitor whole-body movement, but it is not appropriate for monitoring hand movements.The Leap motion sensor can be used to complement some limitations of the Kinect sensor.