Exploring the Potential of Mixed Reality for Functional Assessment in Multiple Sclerosis

The functional recovery of upper limbs (UL) in motor and motor-cognitive tasks is a top priority in rehabilitation procedures for people with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS). In this domain, virtual and augmented settings have proven to show promising effects on clinical compliance in executing motor tasks. However, there is clearly room for improvements in order to accomplish diagnostic activities through the same interactive environments. The present study - setting and showing our methodological approaches - explores the potentials of Microsoft HoloLens2 as a portable and cost-effective device for UL assessment of PwMS. Two novel mixed-reality applications are presented for the augmentation and evaluation of a pick-and-place task performed in the Sagittal plane (PICKapp) and in the Transversal plane (ROCKapp). The two exergames share the occurrence of physical object interactions that trigger digital events. ROCKapp and PICKapp were tested on nine PwMS with the aim to explore the feasibility of HoloLens2 for consistent hand-tracking and eye-tracking recording during functional tasks. By presenting methodologies implemented through a Mixed Reality (MR) setup, this preliminary study contributes to the debate on the effective integration on interactive settings into therapeutic exercises for PwMS with motor deficits.