Notre Dame students tie Wii to stroke patient rehab

To some, a Wii is a fun way to play virtual sports and video games.  Students in a Notre Dame computer science course have found the game system also has the potential to help recovering stroke patients. The students have developed an application for the Wii that could help stroke patients regain their independence. 

The students have partnered with Memorial Hospital to try out the "Wiihab" program.  For stroke survivors, a key step in rehabilitation is regaining a sense of balance.

“I can tell them all day long, they're not putting enough weight on a leg,” said Sarah Kuzmicz, a Memorial Hospital physical therapist. “But they don't understand because they can't really see it or feel it.  With the Wii system, it gives them the feedback. It shows them on the screen, ‘Wow! I'm really not putting very much weight on my leg.’”

Wiihab uses a regular Wii game system, a Wii Fit board, and connects to a computer through Bluetooth.

“I like it. It's fun doing it on the Wii Fit board,” said Carol Smith, a patient recovering from a stroke.  “You can see your progress day to day when you watch the screen.”

“Most of them really get into it,” said Kuzmicz.  “Even if they’ve never played the Wii system before, a lot of times they’ve seen their grandchildren play, so it kind of peeks their interests a lit bit.”

Kuzmicz said it also distracts patients from the idea of using a weak leg.  “A lot of times patients have a fear of putting weight on a leg, so if you engage their mind in the game side of it, sometimes they’ll do more than they’d be willing to do if they were just focusing on that leg.”

“When I come here and see patients working with it, it makes me happy that my work can make a difference and help these patients to improve,” said Michael Kennedy, a Notre Dame grad student who is developing the program.

He uses feedback from the therapists to improve the software.  Eventually, Aaron Striegel, the associate professor who teaches the Notre Dame course, hopes to see the system used in rehab centers across the country. 

“It’s gone very well,” said Striegel.  “The therapists have been delighted with the work. We’ve been excited to see how the patients interact with it.  It’s been a real treat to see how everyone’s embraced the project and enjoyed it.”

Striegel said in the future the program could be developed for use with amputees learning to use a prosthetic leg or knee surgery patients.

Because of the low cost of the system, Striegel also foresees patients being able to take a Wiihab system home, enabling therapists to continue monitoring their progress.

View the original article here

Wii set to deliver rehab for stroke victims

February 10, 2011 By William G. Gilroy

Enlarge

Those who have succumbed to the Wii craze are no doubt awed by its dizzying array of games and virtual sports. However, an innovative course offered in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering is encouraging students to take the innovative technology in new directions, including some that that fit nicely with the College of Engineering ’s emphasis on engineering for the greater good.

Aaron Striegel, an associate professor in the department, came up with the concept of offering its majors the opportunity to take a programming course that challenged them to design and develop new applications for the Wii.

Striegel notes that students enrolled in the course initially concentrated on creating new software for games, a natural inclination for a generation for whom gaming is second nature.

Eventually, however, a group of his students and colleagues hit upon an idea for a course project that has the potential to offer exciting therapeutic possibilities for stroke victims.

The question asked was, “Can we leverage the low-cost nature of the Wii Balance Board with custom software to deliver a better, objective balance rehab for victims of stroke?

Someone in America has a stroke every 45 seconds. Roughly 700,000 Americans will have a new or recurrent stroke this year and 163,000 will die. The economic impact of strokes is estimated at 40 to 70 million dollars per year.

For those who survive a stroke, a key step in returning to a sense of normalcy and independence is to regain a sense of balance through rehabilitation. However, regaining a sense of balance in health care settings using sophisticated rehab equipment is both costly and time consuming. Faced with this challenge, Striegel assigned a project to the course to undertake an effort to develop software that would take advantage of the lower cost Wii components to develop a diagnostic tool to help therapists to measure the progress of stroke victims in regaining balance.

“Each student group was tasked with creating visualization for balance on a large, flat panel display,” Striegel said. “Students in the class created tremendously clever renderings of balance ranging from an airplane landing display to a game involving a penguin escaping a cave of polar bears.”

Following the class, several of the student groups continued their work with Jim Schmiedeler, a Notre Dame professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, University psychology researchers Charles Crowell and Michael Villano and rehabilitation therapists from South Bend’s Memorial Hospital. The software was expanded upon by Michael Kennedy, one of Schmiedeler’s graduate students, with ten stroke victims over the past year at Memorial Hospital. Initial test results showed that the system held significant promise. Patients were able to gauge their balance and make adjustments while using the balance board and watching a screen hooked up to the Wii controls. Therapists were able to offer guidance to the patients as they also viewed the screen.

The researchers hope that the technology can eventually be developed into an at-home therapy, which will further lower costs and provide patients with a greater sense of independence.

Striegel and his fellow researchers hope that future groups of students enrolled in the class will be able to extend the technology to applications for amputees and those rehabbing from sports injuries.

Provided by University of Notre Dame (news : web)

Rate this story - 5 /5 (1 vote)

View the original article here

Nintendo Wii helps patients rehab injuries at Milton Hospital

As 17-year-old Lenore McBrearty readies for a virtual-reality moment, she leans slightly forward on a small white board that will lift her into the “air.”

But the Milton High School senior is doing much more than attempting to record her best ski-jump distance on the Nintendo Wii Fit video game system.

It’s all part of McBrearty’s rehabilitation at Milton Hospital for the torn anterior cruciate ligament, commonly known as the ACL, she suffered two years ago while playing soccer.

“I never touched Wii before,” McBrearty said recently. “It has helped with my balance a lot.”

Wii was being used for physical therapy within a year of its 2006 debut. Physical therapists have been using it as a tool ever since then.

Wii has been in use at Milton Hospital for four months.

When McBrearty began her Wii therapy, she was at the hospital twice a week for two months.

Beyond the rehab benefits, there’s an element of fun. McBrearty can try to better the scores of her younger brother, Kevin, 15, a baseball player getting therapy for an injured shoulder.

James Lawson, the hospital’s director of rehabilitation services, said patients ranging in age from 9 to 82 are using the games.

“We incorporate it into the different programs a physical therapist will use,” Lawson said.

Patients with all sorts of ailments – from back problems to the effects of a stroke – benefit.

The average workout is about 15 minutes. It’s less for those with not as much stamina, such as the elderly.

“This is a cost-effective means of giving feedback to patients,” Lawson said. “It makes the process fun, and patients are more likely to see improvements.”

Lawson said 87 percent of the patients using Wii Fit have reported improvements when the game system is used in tandem with other therapy.

It apparently doesn’t matter that the interactive games are on a 20-inch television at the hospital, not a 50-inch high-definition flat screen.

So far, about 50 patients have participated in the program.

Lawson said the hospital’s therapy program with Wii is patterned after the one the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey has been using to rehabilitate injured American soldiers.

The price tag for the Wii gaming system and its components is less than $400.

Physical therapist Terese Robinson said patient improvement is noticeable.

“It gives us another tool to provide quality care for our patients, and it doesn’t cost $50,000 like a piece of medical equipment,” Robinson said. “It requires interaction with a therapist. Otherwise, it’s just a game.”

Dennis Tatz may be reached at dtatz@ledger.com.

READ MORE about this issue.

View the original article here