Stroke is a leading cause of life-lasting motor impairments, undermining
the quality of life of stroke survivors and their families, and representing a major chal lenge for a world population that is ageing at a dramatic rate. Important technologi cal developments and neuroscientific discoveries have contributed to a better under standing of stroke recovery. Virtual Reality (VR) arises as a powerful tool because it
allows merging contributions from engineering, human computer interaction, reha bilitation medicine and neuroscience to propose novel and more effective paradigms
for motor rehabilitation. However, despite evidence of the benefits of these novel
training paradigms, most of them still rely on the choice of particular technologi cal solutions tailored to specific subsets of patients. Here we present an integrative
framework that utilizes concepts of human computer confluence to 1) enable VR neu rorehabilitation through interface technologies, making VR rehabilitation paradigms
accessible to wide populations of patients, and 2) create VR training environments
that allow the personalization of training to address the individual needs of stroke
patients. The use of these features is demonstrated in pilot studies using VR training
environments in different configurations: as an online low-cost version, with a myo electric robotic orthosis, and in a neurofeedback paradigm. Finally, we argue about
the need of coupling VR approaches and neurocomputational modelling to further
study stroke and its recovery process, aiding on the design of optimal rehabilitation
programs tailored to the requirements of each user.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
