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Rehabilitation of Post-COVID Patients: A Virtual Reality Home-Based Intervention Including Cardio-Respiratory Fitness Training

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Extended Reality (XR Salento 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13445))

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Abstract

The post-COVID syndrome is emerging as a new chronic condition, characterized by symptoms of breathlessness, fatigue, and decline of neurocognitive functions. Rehabilitation programs that include physical training seem to be beneficial to reduce such symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life. Given this, and considering the limitations imposed by the pandemic on rehabilitation services, it emerged the need to integrate telerehabilitation programs into clinical practice. Some telerehabilitation solutions, also based on virtual reality (VR), are available in the market. Still, they mainly focus on rehabilitation of upper limbs, balance, and cognitive training, while exercises like cycling or walking are usually not considered. The presented work aims to fill this gap by integrating a VR application to provide cardio-respiratory fitness training to post-COVID patients in an existing telerehabilitation platform. The ARTEDIA application allows patients to perform a cycling exercise and a concurrent cognitive task. Patients can cycle in a virtual park while performing a “go/no-go” task by selecting only specific targets appearing along the way. The difficulty of the practice can be adjusted by the therapists, while the physiological response is continuously monitored through wearable sensors to ensure safety. The application has been integrated into the VRRS system by Khymeia. In the next months, a study to assess the feasibility of a complete telerehabilitation program based on physical and cognitive training will take place. Such a program will combine the existing VRRS exercises and the cardio-respiratory fitness exercise provided by the ARTEDIA application. Feasibility, acceptance, and usability will be assessed from both the patients’ and the therapists’ sides.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Digital therapies for neurorehabilitation: MindMotion, available at: https://mindmaze.com/healthcare/mindmotion.

  2. 2.

    BTS Telerehab – Telerehabilitation – Rehabilitation at home as in the clinic, available at: https://www.btstelerehab.com/teleriabilitazione/.

  3. 3.

    RIABLO – Motivate your patients, measure the movement, available at: https://www.corehab.it/en/riablo-bf/.

  4. 4.

    Khymeia VRRS – Virtual Reality Rehabilitation System, available at: http://khymeia.com/en/products/vrrs/.

  5. 5.

    COSMED ergometers, available at: https://www.cosmed.com/it/prodotti/ergometri/cicloergometri-cosmed.

  6. 6.

    Puck.js - the JavaScript Bluetooth Beacon, available at: https://www.puck-js.com/.

  7. 7.

    Gaia Pro 2021 - Terrain & Scene Generator by Procedural Worlds, available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/terrain/gaia-pro-2021-terrain-scene-generator-193476.

  8. 8.

    Curvy Spline by ToolBuddy, available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/curvy-splines-8-212532.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Khymeia Group for the integration of the presented virtual reality-based application in their platform. This work has been funded by Fondazione Cariplo within the project “Applicazione della tele-Riabilitazione come sTrumEnto DI continuità di curA (ARTEDIA)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Intelligent Industrial Technologies and Systems for Advanced Manufacturing, Italian National Research Council, Lecco, Italy

    Vera Colombo, Marta Mondellini, Giovanni Tauro, Marco Sacco & Sara Arlati

  2. Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Vera Colombo

  3. Nearlab and WE-COBOT Lab, Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Emilia Ambrosini & Alessandra Pedrocchi

  4. Valduce Hospital –Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center, Costa Masnaga, LC, Italy

    Giovanna Palumbo, Mauro Rossini & Franco Molteni

  5. Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bioengineering Lab, Bosisio Parini, LC, Italy

    Emilia Biffi, Roberta Nossa & Gianluigi Reni

  6. Scientific Institute, IRCCS INRCA, Casatenovo, LC, Italy

    Alessia Fumagalli & Daniele Colombo

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  1. Vera Colombo
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  2. Marta Mondellini
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Correspondence to Vera Colombo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Lucio Tommaso De Paolis

  2. Università di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Pasquale Arpaia

  3. CNR-STIIMA, Lecco, Italy

    Marco Sacco

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Colombo, V. et al. (2022). Rehabilitation of Post-COVID Patients: A Virtual Reality Home-Based Intervention Including Cardio-Respiratory Fitness Training. In: De Paolis, L.T., Arpaia, P., Sacco, M. (eds) Extended Reality. XR Salento 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13445. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15546-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15546-8_1

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