Innovative Hand Rehabilitation System With Synchronized Contralateral Haptic Feedback

Previous studies showed that mirror therapy, compared with traditional rehabilitation treatments, can continuously provide cortical activation. Besides, several studies indicated that game-based interventions contribute to brain activation in the elderly due to their interest can improve users\' motivation in the training program execution. In addition, force control training has positive effects on hand dexterity, and specific doses of motor control training not only improve motor function but also have positive effects on brain function. Currently, hand function training primarily focuses on range of motion, strength, and hand function, although there is comparatively less emphasis on enhancing both force control and brain function. However, there is lacking studies focusing on investigating the effects of the integration force control training into mirror therapy until now. In addition, there are no studies on the exploration of how the brain activation works in different task difficulties and the force level of hand training. Additionally, visual feedback from force control training in our study is through the hints displayed virtually on the game interface of the tablet, which were represented as the height of the targets, not as typical as actual movement-based mirror therapy or task-based mirror therapy. Therefore, the motivation of the study is to understand the effects of practicing force control training with Mirror Visual Feedback (MVF), and explore the brain activity during different task complexity and force levels. So, the purpose of the study is to understand the training effects of integrating MVF and with force control training, and to explore the brain activation in different task difficulties and force levels.