Medical gaming treating life-changing injuries By Franchesca Hashemi BBC Click
11 June
Rehabilitation centers across the globe are using computer games to aid patients who are suffering from the effects of serious illness or injury.
Ruby Flanagan, a Wirral nurse, lost her leg in August 2021 when she was struck by a car.
She is currently receiving treatments that are based on computer games as part of her rehabilitation, which she hopes will mean she can one day be able to raise her son off the floor.
Ruby suffered the injury while shopping with her five-month-old son, Leon.
Although she was able to get her son out of harm's way, Ruby was not so lucky.
Her right leg was amputated, her left leg required extensive reconstruction, and her pelvis was broken by the force of the crash.
"The first few weeks in the hospital are blurred," Ruby told BBC Click.
"I don't remember being awake. I don't recall who told me that my leg was amputated. I thought I would be able to walk again. I'll be fitted with a prosthetic leg or an imitation leg, and that's all.
"I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be."
Ruby is currently receiving conventional treatments at Steps the Sheffield rehabilitation clinic. This includes hydrotherapy and physiotherapy , as along with MindPod sessions.
MindPod allows Ruby and other patients with similar conditions, to control an animated Dolphin to help their bodies recover strength and balance.
"When I first began my journey at Steps I had no idea that intensive rehab could be a game," she laughs.
She says the ambient lighting and peaceful nature of MindPod's setting is helping her move her body effortlessly, without even thinking about it.
"[MindPod helps balance, coordination and stability in the core," she says.
"It shows things as when I was in the kitchen, reaching out for things in the cupboards up or down below."
game servers an a lot of fun
Ruby is making amazing improvements due to her hard work, and the help from the staff at the clinic.
"A lot of our clients have feedback that they feel they've been working in the MindPod however, they also feel relaxed when leaving," says Lucy Moore Head of Therapies at Steps.
The video-game-inspired therapy that is immersive is the brainchild of Dr. Omar Ahmad and Dr John Krakauer, of the Kata studio at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
It makes use of motion-sensor cameras and motion-sensors to monitor the movements of patients while they guide Bandit the dolphin, a playful one, across a screen.
But Dr Ahmad, who invented Bandit is adamant that it's not an animation in the traditional sense.
"All the movement that occurs in the game is created in real-time," he explains. The patient "becomes a dolphin by mastering motor-dynamics, and expressing motion in the space of the animal."
Dr Krakauer, his colleague in neurology and neuroscience described the new method as the term "digital therapy" which means that a doctor could prescribe software "as tablets".
"It creates an feedback loop of learning and facilitates exploration in the manner a child learns to move their arms from early infancy," he says.
Strathclyde University is testing some of the digital therapies currently available.
Dr Andrew Kerr runs its community-focused Sir Jules Thorn Centre for Co-creation of Rehabilitation Technology, which offers those who have suffered strokes the chance to test and develop robotic and gaming-type equipment for their injuries.
"Ultimately the thing we are trying to do is create technology that is not only for those who have the money to buy it, but they can access it at their local leisure centers or at the comfort of their homes," he explains.
The mission of the centre is to make rehabilitation technology more readily accessible.
This is an example of the university's 3D Motion Capture System, which utilizes cameras and sensors all over the room to monitor the movements of patients.
Maisie Keogh is a PhD student in biomedical engineering at the university is working with stroke patients to produce personalised rehabilitation programmes that are guided by computers to ensure that they get the best of out of their therapy.
As with many innovative technologies, it could be months or even years before they are widely accessible in the community.
Ruby, a new mother, has made great progress and is now focusing on one particular skill.
She says, "My long-term goal was to be capable of picking up the child and carry him up and down steps."
BBC Click has the most recent episode on MindPod and digital therapies.
VR is being tested to lessen the trauma of miscarriage.
8 April
Artificial Intelligence Apps me, Parkinson's and me
6 December 2019
No comments yet