scholarly journals A Repertoire of Virtual-Reality, Occupational Therapy Exercises for Motor Rehabilitation Based on Action Observation

Data ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Emilia Scalona ◽  
Doriana De Marco ◽  
Maria Chiara Bazzini ◽  
Arturo Nuara ◽  
Adolfo Zilli ◽  
...  

There is a growing interest in action observation treatment (AOT), i.e., a rehabilitative procedure combining action observation, motor imagery, and action execution to promote the recovery, maintenance, and acquisition of motor abilities. AOT studies employed basic upper limb gestures as stimuli, but—in principle—the AOT approach can be effectively extended to more complex actions like occupational gestures. Here, we present a repertoire of virtual-reality (VR) stimuli depicting occupational therapy exercises intended for AOT, potentially suitable for occupational safety and injury prevention. We animated a humanoid avatar by fitting the kinematics recorded by a healthy subject performing the exercises. All the stimuli are available via a custom-made graphical user interface, which allows the user to adjust several visualization parameters like the viewpoint, the number of repetitions, and the observed movement’s speed. Beyond providing clinicians with a set of VR stimuli promoting via AOT the recovery of goal-oriented, occupational gestures, such a repertoire could extend the use of AOT to the field of occupational safety and injury prevention.

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Cook ◽  
D. Swapp ◽  
X. Pan ◽  
N. Bianchi-Berthouze ◽  
S-J. Blakemore

BackgroundObserving incongruent actions interferes with ongoing action execution. This ‘interference effect’ is larger for observed biological actions than for non-biological actions. The current study used virtual reality to investigate the biological specificity of interference effects of action observation in autism spectrum conditions (ASC).MethodHigh-functioning adults with ASC and age- and IQ-matched healthy controls performed horizontal sinusoidal arm movements whilst observing arm movements conducted by a virtual reality agent with either human or robot form, which moved with either biological motion or at a constant velocity. In another condition, participants made the same arm movements while observing a real human. Observed arm movements were either congruent or incongruent with executed arm movements. An interference effect was calculated as the average variance in the incongruent action dimension during observation of incongruent compared with congruent movements.ResultsControl participants exhibited an interference effect when observing real human and virtual human agent incongruent movements but not when observing virtual robot agent movements. Individuals with ASC differed from controls in that they showed no interference effects for real human, virtual human or virtual robot movements.ConclusionsThe current study demonstrates atypical interference effects in ASC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 117954762199457
Author(s):  
Daniele Emedoli ◽  
Maddalena Arosio ◽  
Andrea Tettamanti ◽  
Sandro Iannaccone

Background: Buccofacial Apraxia is defined as the inability to perform voluntary movements of the larynx, pharynx, mandible, tongue, lips and cheeks, while automatic or reflexive control of these structures is preserved. Buccofacial Apraxia frequently co-occurs with aphasia and apraxia of speech and it has been reported as almost exclusively resulting from a lesion of the left hemisphere. Recent studies have demonstrated the benefit of treating apraxia using motor training principles such as Augmented Feedback or Action Observation Therapy. In light of this, the study describes the treatment based on immersive Action Observation Therapy and Virtual Reality Augmented Feedback in a case of Buccofacial Apraxia. Participant and Methods: The participant is a right-handed 58-years-old male. He underwent a neurosurgery intervention of craniotomy and exeresis of infra axial expansive lesion in the frontoparietal convexity compatible with an atypical meningioma. Buccofacial Apraxia was diagnosed by a neurologist and evaluated by the Upper and Lower Face Apraxia Test. Buccofacial Apraxia was quantified also by a specific camera, with an appropriately developed software, able to detect the range of motion of automatic face movements and the range of the same movements on voluntary requests. In order to improve voluntary movements, the participant completed fifteen 1-hour rehabilitation sessions, composed of a 20-minutes immersive Action Observation Therapy followed by a 40-minutes Virtual Reality Augmented Feedback sessions, 5 days a week, for 3 consecutive weeks. Results: After treatment, participant achieved great improvements in quality and range of facial movements, performing most of the facial expressions (eg, kiss, smile, lateral angle of mouth displacement) without unsolicited movement. Furthermore, the Upper and Lower Face Apraxia Test showed an improvement of 118% for the Upper Face movements and of 200% for the Lower Face movements. Conclusion: Performing voluntary movement in a Virtual Reality environment with Augmented Feedbacks, in addition to Action Observation Therapy, improved performances of facial gestures and consolidate the activations by the central nervous system based on principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity.


2012 ◽  
Vol 231 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Loporto ◽  
Craig J. McAllister ◽  
Martin G. Edwards ◽  
David J. Wright ◽  
Paul S. Holmes

Author(s):  
Stephan de la Rosa ◽  
Frieder L. Schillinger ◽  
Heinrich H. Bülthoff ◽  
Johannes Schultz ◽  
Kamil Uludag

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Nurshamshida Md Shamsudin ◽  
Faizah Abdul Majid

Occupational Safety and Health Act (1994) and efforts taken to ensure the safety of workers in the construction industry. Despite these, accident rates are still alarming. One of the reasons is due to the weak pedagogy, lack of technology integration, and hazardous learning environment that lead towards low learning performance and practicing safety procedures. This study aims to discover the effectiveness of virtual reality simulation learning environment. Results show that there is a significant difference in trainee's achievements in a traditional construction site visit and virtual construction environment. To conclude, virtual reality learning environment offers effective learning platforms for millennials.Keywords: safety hazards; occupational safety and health; virtual reality;eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA CE-Bs by E-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i12.1802


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 372
Author(s):  
M. Soriano ◽  
A. Cavallo ◽  
C. Becchio

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Nélida Waliño-Paniagua ◽  
Cristina Gómez-Calero ◽  
María Isabel Jiménez-Trujillo ◽  
Leticia Aguirre-Tejedor ◽  
Alberto Bermejo-Franco ◽  
...  

Neurorehabilitation is a fundamental aspect in the treatment approach for multiple sclerosis (MS), in which new technologies have gained popularity, especially the use of virtual reality (VR). The aim of this paper is to analyze an occupational therapy (OT) intervention compared with OT + VR (OT + VR) on the manual dexterity of patients with MS. 26 MS subjects were initially recruited from an MS patient association and randomized into two groups. The OT group received 20 conventional OT sessions distributed in two sessions per week. The OT + VR group received 20 sessions of VR interventions, twice weekly and lasting 30 minutes, consisting of VR games accessed via the online web pagemotiongamingconsole.com, in addition to the conventional OT sessions. Pre- and postintervention assessments were based on the Purdue Pegboard Test, the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test, and the Grooved Pegboard Test. Clinical improvements were found regarding the precision of movements, the execution times, and the efficiency of certain functional tasks in the Purdue Pegboard Test and Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test tests in the OT + VR group. Although significant differences were not found in the manual dexterity between the OT and OT + VR groups, improvements were found regarding the precision and effectiveness of certain functional tasks.


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