Experiments in EEG in a unified neuro-physio platform for rehabilitation and biofeedback

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a powerful tool for monitoring brain activities and is commonly used in medical diagnosis especially in diagnosing of brain related disease e.g. stroke, Alzheimer’s disease. However, in recent years, there had been a number of researches conducted to explore the use of EEG signal to assist handicapped people in their daily activities e.g. virtual keyboards, spelling device for paralyzed, prosthetic devices. Previous project done by final year student was to identify usable trigger signal to assist in the rehabilitation of stroke patient. In continuation of the project, the objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of using EEG signals to not only trigger a rehabilitation device but also to understand the mind states of patients undergoing therapy. This will act as an indicator for the therapists as well as a system of neurofeedback for the patient in the course of therapy. It will be a valuable system to include in any therapy program, with or without robotic orthosis. This study focuses on two disability conditions, stroke and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In short, this study forms the basic EEG research proposed “Unified Neuro-physio Platform” which is being developed as an innovative and affordable technology for home based rehabilitation and biofeedback. For stroke, several experiments were carried out to identify triggers that could be captured to operate a rehabilitation orthosis, in a noisy outdoor environment. Currently, one therapist can only attend to one stroke patient at a time. Hence therapy session for stroke patient is limited. The development of rehabilitation orthosis will enable the therapist to attend to more than one stroke patient at a time. Hence stroke patient will be able to undergo more therapy sessions and will be able to recover faster. The other purpose of this project was to find the possibility of using an alternative method to help in the therapy of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patient. ADHD patient showed abnormality in the EEG signal, it decreases the attention parameter of EEG signal (increased the theta to beta ratio). Current treatment of ADHD patient utilizes stimulant medication along with behavior therapy to normalize the brain activity. Based on literature research, music therapy and hypnotherapy could be the alternative method to increase the attention of ADHD patient. Experiments were conducted with several volunteers. The experiments were carefully designed and the script was recorded to facilitate the analyzing stage. The volunteers were asked to do simple task such as lifting of arms, closing of eyes repeatedly. The second part of experiment, the volunteers were asked to relax and listen to music, a short relaxation script, and do arithmetic calculation. The above tasks were done to examine the effect of different tasks on the EEG signal. Subsequent signal processing identified difference in the EEG signal during movement of left hand and right hand. However, the utilization of this signal as a trigger was impractical with a simple circuit and basic signal processing as the signal was inconsistent. For eye related tasks, there was no difference observable between closing of left eye and closing of right eye. Subsequent observation found similarities in the EEG signal during closing of one eye and both eyes opened. It could be concluded that both left and right hemisphere of brain processed the visual input from either one eye or both. Quantitative EEG (QEEG) was the method used to investigate the effect of music therapy and hypnotherapy on EEG signal. Both music therapy and hypnotherapy were found to have the possibility to increase the attention. This has particular significance for children and elderly with attention difficulties.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering