Towards Adaptive Virtual Reality for Stroke Recovery: A Personalized Approach to Rehabilitation

Traditional methods for stroke rehabilitation may lead to reduced motivation and engagement among stroke survivors, limiting the effectiveness of recovery. While survivors share a common goal of regaining lost function, they each have unique characteristics, abilities, and rehabilitation needs. Some tasks that are central to recovery may be too difficult for certain individuals due to their limitations, while others might find those same tasks easier to perform. In this context, there is a significant opportunity to explore the role of adaptive systems in tailoring rehabilitation programs to individual needs. This position paper proposes a vision for combining Virtual Reality (VR) with personalized adaptation methods to create a more responsive and tailored rehabilitation experience. These personalized systems can allow tasks to be dynamically adapted to survivor’s capabilities, making exercises more achievable, yet challenging, and ultimately accelerating recovery. By leveraging VR’s immersive capabilities and integrating personalization, stroke recovery programs can be adjusted to match the specific abilities and progress of each survivor, potentially enhancing motivation, engagement, and overall outcomes. These and other arguments in favor of adaptive, personalized VR rehabilitation are presented, and future directions for research and development are proposed.