Projection-Based AR: Effective Visual Feedback in Gait Rehabilitation

Effective real-time feedback is crucial to enhance motor learning in physical and cognitive rehabilitation. Although monitor-based (MB) platforms are widely used to provide visual feedback for users, the discrepancy between where the feedback is presented and where the actual movement occurs can negatively affect the use of feedback. In this paper, we propose a novel visual feedback system using projection-based augmented reality (AR) to provide a better understanding of the relationship between body perception and movement kinematics. A set of experiments were performed to assess and compare the ability of unimpaired and impaired participants to detect real-time feedback and make modifications to gait using this feedback in MB and AR platforms. The results showed a significant improvement in participants' ability to better adapt the changes in projection-based AR than MB. This improvement represents the efficacy of this system in enabling users to better synchronize their foot-eye coordination.