VR Presentation of Obstacle for Crutch Walk Training

Abstract

Because an improper usage of crutches can cause a secondary accident like a fall, it is desirable to train an inexperienced crutch user safely at an early stage of a rehabilitation. In this study, the authors proposed a novel crutch walk training system where an inexperienced crutch user wears a head-mounted display (HMD). Virtual obstacles were presented on the HMD, and the trainee were expected to acquire a skill to cope with them through trainings. Three kinds of experiments were conducted for nine participants, and their results showed that (1) wearing a HMD did not disturb the walk motions significantly, (2) most participants acquired a skill to stop the walk motions shortly, and (3) skills of obstacle avoidance of the participants depended on the direction of an obstacle appearance.