Giving Compass' Take:

• Researchers say that a virtual reality clinic could help patients increase access to stroke therapy rehabilitation they need.

• How can VR technology help individuals facing other diseases help with care and recovery paths?

• Learn more about how AR and VR can transform the health sector.

Results from a proof-of-concept study suggest that the technology—and the social connection it facilitates—are effective at encouraging therapy participation.

“Physical and occupational therapy are important parts of stroke recovery, in terms of helping survivors regain dexterity and functional motor ability,” says coauthor Derek Kamper, an associate professor in the joint biomedical engineering department at North Carolina State University and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“However, stroke survivors often face significant challenges in attending their therapy sessions. For example, many survivors don’t live near facilities that offer relevant therapy services.

“Our goal was to create an online, virtual reality platform that allows patients and therapists to interact in what is essentially real time,” says Kamper. “Clients could also use the system to work on therapy exercises with loved ones who live far away.”

The resulting system, called Virtual Environment for Rehabilitative Gaming Exercises (VERGE), is a software package that makes use of Kinect motion-sensor hardware to track the movement of patients and therapists. The system was developed by Kamper with collaborators at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and the University of Illinois at Chicago. VERGE currently supports three different rehabilitation activities, such as hitting a virtual ball back and forth when multiple users are present, or bouncing it off a wall when in single-user mode.

Participants also spent 22% more time—or an additional 7.6 minutes—in their sessions when using VERGE in multi-user mode. And that time was more active, with participants moving their hands about 415 meters per session during multi-user sessions, as compared to 327 meters during single-user sessions.

“This suggests that the social aspect of VERGE has real benefits for stroke survivors in the context of getting them engaged in therapy,” Kamper says.

Read the full article about virtual reality stroke therapy by Matt Shipman at Futurity.