EU Project MIMICS Started
On January 15/16, the kick off meeting of the EU Projekt MIMICS (Multimodal Immersive Motion Rehabilitation with Interactive Cognitive Systems) took place in Zurich.
For the first time, leading researchers from the areas of robotics, presence research, and neurorehabilitation allied in the project. The goal of the project is to use virtual reality methods for the rehabilitation of stroke patients. The patients shall be motivated to a maximum degree and the virtual environment is adapting continuously to the patient's abilities and attention.
The project is headed by Prof. Robert Riener (ETH Zurich and University of Zurich). Cooperation partners are the Spinal Cord Injury Center at University Hospital Balgrist (Prof. Volker Dietz), the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (Prof. Marko Munih), the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spanien (Prof. Mel Slater), the Neurologische Klinik Bad Aibling, Germany (Dr. Friedemann Müller), and industrial partner Hocoma AG, Volketswil, Switzerland (Dr. Lars Lünenburger). The project is financed within the Seventh Framework of the EU, overall support amounts to 1.6 Mio Euro (2.5 Mio CHF). The project budget is 2.2 Mio EUR (3.5 Mio CHF, including own contributions of the partners).
The main goal of the project is to influence motivation and attention of stroke patients by motor activities (in upper and lower extremities) within virtual environments. The virtual scenario, which consists of avatars and other objects, is supposed to interact with the patient and adjust continuously to his physical and psychological state. Thus, the patient shall experience a high degree of presence and feel neither over- nor under-challenged. The long-term goal is to improve rehabilitation of neurological patients, i.e. stroke patients, spinal-cord-injured patients, children affected by cerebral palsy, and patients after traumatic brain injury.
Further information: MIMICS project homepage