Use of Virtual Reality System Toyra to Develop an Objective Set of Parameters to Evaluate the Motor Abilities of Upper Limbs in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury

Virtual reality (VR) systems can help not only as a complementary tool in the rehabilitation of patients suffering any motor disorder, but also as a method to evaluate objectively the patient’s performance during this process. In this study, a VR system named Toyra® has been used to develop a set of indexes comprising information about spinal cord injury (SCI) patients in terms of: amplitude of movements, precision, agility and repeatability. Patients with different levels of SCI (from C5 to C8) have performed a number of Toyra® sessions. After processing the results, it has been observed that indexes values obtained by patients are inversely proportional to the height of the injury, suggesting that this tool could be useful in the evaluation of patient’s motor abilities of upper limbs.