scholarly journals Immersive Virtual Reality in Stroke Patients as a New Approach for Reducing Postural Disabilities and Falls Risk: A Case Series

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Cortés-Pérez ◽  
Francisco Antonio Nieto-Escamez ◽  
Esteban Obrero-Gaitán

Stroke is a neurologic disorder considered the first cause of disability worldwide due to motor, cognitive, and sensorial sequels. Balance dysfunctions in stroke survivors increase the risk of falls and physiotherapeutic rehabilitation is essential to reduce it. Virtual reality (VR) seems to be an alternative to conventional physiotherapy (CT), providing virtual environments and multisensorial inputs to train balance in stroke patients. The aim of this study was to assess if immersive VR treatment is more effective than CT to improve balance after stroke. This study got the approval from the Ethics Committee of the University of Almeria. Three chronic ischemic stroke patients were selected. One patient who received 25 sessions of immersive VR intervention for two months was compared with another patient who received equivalent CT and a third patient with no intervention. Balance, gait, risk of falling, and vestibular and visual implications in the equilibrium were assessed. After the interventions, the two patients receiving any of the treatments showed an improvement in balance compared to the untreated patient. In comparison to CT, our results suggest a higher effect of immersive VR in the improvement of balance and a reduction of falls risk due to the active upright work during the VR intervention.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1510
Author(s):  
Charles Morizio ◽  
Maxime Billot ◽  
Jean-Christophe Daviet ◽  
Stéphane Baudry ◽  
Christophe Barbanchon ◽  
...  

People who survive a stroke are often left with long-term neurologic deficits that induce, among other impairments, balance disorders. While virtual reality (VR) is growing in popularity for postural control rehabilitation in post-stroke patients, studies on the effect of challenging virtual environments, simulating common daily situations on postural control in post-stroke patients, are scarce. This study is a first step to document the postural response of stroke patients to different challenging virtual environments. Five subacute stroke patients and fifteen age-matched healthy adults were included. All participants underwent posturographic tests in control conditions (open and closed eyes) and virtual environment without (one static condition) and with avatars (four dynamic conditions) using a head-mounted device for VR. In dynamic environments, we modulated the density of the virtual crowd (dense and light crowd) and the avoidance space with the avatars (near or far). Center of pressure velocity was collected by trial throughout randomized 30-s periods. Results showed that more challenging conditions (dynamic condition) induced greater postural disturbances in stroke patients than in healthy counterparts. Our study suggests that virtual reality environments should be adjusted in light of obtaining more or less challenging conditions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Luque-Moreno ◽  
Alejandro Ferragut-Garcías ◽  
Cleofás Rodríguez-Blanco ◽  
Alberto Marcos Heredia-Rizo ◽  
Jesús Oliva-Pascual-Vaca ◽  
...  

Objective. To develop a systematic review of the literature, to describe the different virtual reality (VR) interventions and interactive videogames applied to the lower extremity (LE) of stroke patients, and to analyse the results according to the most frequently used outcome measures.Material and Methods. An electronic search of randomized trials between January 2004 and January 2014 in different databases (Medline, Cinahl, Web of Science, PEDro,andCochrane) was carried out. Several terms (virtual reality, feedback, stroke, hemiplegia, brain injury, cerebrovascular accident, lower limb, leg, andgait) were combined, and finally 11 articles were included according to the established inclusion and exclusion criteria.Results. The reviewed trials showed a high heterogeneity in terms of study design and assessment tools, which makes it difficult to compare and analyze the different types of interventions. However, most of them found a significant improvement on gait speed, balance and motor function, due to VR intervention.Conclusions. Although evidence is limited, it suggests that VR intervention (more than 10 sessions) in stroke patients may have a positive impact on balance, and gait recovery. Better results were obtained when a multimodal approach, combining VR and conventional physiotherapy, was used. Flexible software seems to adapt better to patients’ requirements, allowing more specific and individual treatments.


2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. David Rose ◽  
Elizabeth A. Attree ◽  
Barbara M. Brooks ◽  
Tresa K. Andrews

The virtual reality research group at the University of East London has its origins in basic neuroscience research on environmental influences on recovery of function from brain damage. Here we describe our work since incorporating within our research the use of virtual environments (VEs) in brain damage rehabilitation. We have focused on three issues relating to the development of VEs for people with impaired brain function: “usability”, the value of active interaction (as opposed to passive observation), and the nature of transfer of training from virtual to real environments. Our studies, which have encompassed vascular, traumatic, degenerative, and developmental brain damage, suggest that VEs have great potential in brain damage rehabilitation.


2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregorij Kurillo ◽  
Matjaž Mihelj ◽  
Marko Munih ◽  
Tadej Bajd

In this article we present a new isometric input device for multi-fingered grasping in virtual environments. The device was designed to simultaneously assess forces applied by the thumb, index, and middle finger. A mathematical model of grasping, adopted from the analysis of multi-fingered robot hands, was applied to achieve multi-fingered interaction with virtual objects. We used the concept of visual haptic feedback where the user was presented with visual cues to acquire haptic information from the virtual environment. The virtual object corresponded dynamically to the forces and torques applied by the three fingers. The application of the isometric finger device for multi-fingered interaction is demonstrated in four tasks aimed at the rehabilitation of hand function in stroke patients. The tasks include opening the combination lock on a safe, filling and pouring water from a glass, muscle strength training with an elastic torus, and a force tracking task. The training tasks were designed to train patients' grip force coordination and increase muscle strength through repetitive exercises. The presented virtual reality system was evaluated in a group of healthy subjects and two post-stroke patients (early post-stroke and chronic) to obtain overall performance results. The healthy subjects demonstrated consistent performance with the finger device after the first few trials. The two post-stroke patients completed all four tasks, however, with much lower performance scores as compared to healthy subjects. The results of the preliminary assessment suggest that the patients could further improve their performance through virtual reality training.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarune Savickaite ◽  
Elliot Millington ◽  
Imants Latkovskis ◽  
Jonathan Failes ◽  
Nathan Kirkwood ◽  
...  

As VR technology matures, it offers opportunities to provide state of the art learning experiences. The use of this technology in education is not new, however, it can be significantly improved. Situated (or contextual) learning is one of the key pillars of immersive learning. Multi-user interaction in virtual environments has always been one of the goals of VR and this has been represented by the tools developed for it. In this preliminary work, we aim to introduce Project Mobius, which is a collaborative project between Edify.ac and the University of Glasgow. We describe how our multi-user lab has been set up and potential future applications for teaching and learning.


1999 ◽  

Abstract This volume covers papers presented at the NIST-ASME Industrial Virtual Reality Symposium held at the University of Illinois at Chicago, November 1-2, and the Symposium on Virtual Environments (VE) for Manufacturing, a part of the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, held in Nashville, November 14-18. A collection of research and case study papers from both symposia are included.


Manufacturing ◽  
2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Valerio Netto ◽  
Maria Cristina Ferreira de Oliveira

We outline a procedure for implementing a virtual CNC lathe prototype using software for creating virtual environments. The prototype constructed focus on the lathe’s interlocking system (its functionality) and on its geometric model (its physical design). This project allowed us to identify the possibilities and limitations of applying current Virtual Reality technology for virtual prototyping of manufacturing machines, and evaluate the complexity associated to product prototyping in manufacturing or assembly. In additional, we suggest the possibility that this new approach can use for three areas: Training, Marketing/Sale and Product development.


Author(s):  
N. Nozdryukhina ◽  
E. Kabayeva ◽  
E. Kirilyuk ◽  
K. Tushova ◽  
A. Karimov

Despite significant advances in the treatment and rehabilitation of stroke, level of post-stroke disability remains at a fairly high level. Recent innovative developments in the rehabilitation of these patients provide good results in terms of functional outcome. One of such developments is method of virtual reality (VR), which affects not only the speed and volume of regaining movement, as well as coordination, but also normalizes the psycho-emotional background, increasing the motivation of patients to improve the recovery process. This article provides a literature review of the use of the VR method in the rehabilitation of post-stroke patients, neurophysiological aspects of recovery of lost functions using this method are considered.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Marián Hudák ◽  
Štefan Korečko ◽  
Branislav Sobota

AbstractRecent advances in the field of web technologies, including the increasing support of virtual reality hardware, have allowed for shared virtual environments, reachable by just entering a URL in a browser. One contemporary solution that provides such a shared virtual reality is LIRKIS Global Collaborative Virtual Environments (LIRKIS G-CVE). It is a web-based software system, built on top of the A-Frame and Networked-Aframe frameworks. This paper describes LIRKIS G-CVE and introduces its two original components. The first one is the Smart-Client Interface, which turns smart devices, such as smartphones and tablets, into input devices. The advantage of this component over the standard way of user input is demonstrated by a series of experiments. The second component is the Enhanced Client Access layer, which provides access to positions and orientations of clients that share a virtual environment. The layer also stores a history of connected clients and provides limited control over the clients. The paper also outlines an ongoing experiment aimed at an evaluation of LIRKIS G-CVE in the area of virtual prototype testing.


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