A skilled physiotherapist can get your body working again after an injury, but even they can't see your inner workings while you're rebuilding muscle. So a team of researchers from Saitama University have developed a rehabilitation machine that generates a virtual representation of the muscles in your arm letting you, and your physician, see them in motion.
The machine, dubbed R-cloud, uses haptic feedback, sensors that measure actual muscle contraction, and augmented reality to track the motion of the patient's arm, and then recreate the muscles in 3D on a nearby display.
Working through a debilitating injury requires as much mental recovery as it does physical, and being able to actually see their muscles in motion—stretching and contracting—should provide patients with encouragement to keep pushing themselves. It also gives physiotherapists a better idea of how the muscles in the arm are moving—and to what extent—so they can avoid over exertion. [DigInfo TV]