Kinect applications in elderly care and stroke rehabilitation and Kinect accuracy evaluation

This thesis presents a review of the most current avenues of research into Kinect-based\ud elderly care and stroke rehabilitation systems as well as an experimental evaluation of the\ud suitability of the Kinect for novel ubiquitous rehabilitation methodologies. Stroke rehabilitation has traditionally focused on repetitive movement exercises aimed to both evaluate and retrain damaged sensorimotor systems. The applications of Kinect to this end are presented in two sections: (1) Clinical Accuracy Evaluation, which is a central component to both evaluation and training, and (2) Kinect-based Rehabilitation methods. To quantify the practicality of using the Kinect in this manner, a set of thirteen gross movements, derived from common clinical stroke impairment level assessments (Wolf Motion Function Test, Action Research Arm Test, and Fugl-Meyer Assessment) were utilized to explore the Normalized Root Mean Squared Error (NRMSE) in position for data captured by Kinect as compared to a research-grade OptiTrack motion capture system. A latency and capture rate estimation of the Kinect and its effects on data quality was also conducted. The NRMSE in position varied between 0.53cm to 1.74cm per data point among all axes and joints on average, when initial calibration was conducted via the OptiTrack system. The mean capture period was measured as 33.3ms with 3.86ms standard deviation, and the latency was observed to be on the order of two capture periods (66.6ms on average). These results demonstrate the capabilities as well as limitations of Kinect for ubiquitous rehabilitation