Friday, February 26, 2010

Canadian Researchers Demonstrate Efficacy of Wii-Hab Following Stroke

The American Heart Association held the 2010 International Stroke Conference in San Antonio, Texas, February 24 - 26, 2010. The results of a study led by Gustavo Saposnik, MD and conducted at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto were presented. This poster presentation explained the objective of this study as " to evaluate feasibility, safety, and efficacy of VR using Nintendo Wii gaming technology on motor function during stroke rehab." Readers may view the abstract of this poster beginning on page 3 of this link.
The outcome of this research is detailed in the chart accompanying the abstract found at that link.
Several news writers have summarized the results. In the Bloomberg Businessweek summary, Dr. Saposnik is quoted as saying, "Basically, we found that Wii therapy produced a 30 percent better improvement than recreational therapy in the time it took for the Wii patients to execute a task, and in how well they were able to execute a task."
In this study, the group assigned to recreational therapy preformed activities such as playing with cards and manipulating blocks in the game 'JENGA'. The intervention group participated in Wii activities including Wii Sports tennis and Wii Cooking Mama tasks.
Those participants in the intervention group demonstrated that "VR using Wii is a novel, safe and feasible strategy to facilitate motor function after sroke."

3 comments:

Michael said...

Nice Article

It is very useful for my college education.

occupational therapy university

Holly said...

Hi,
I am an undergraduate OT student in Liverpool university, UK. I am conducting a systematic review into the use of games consoles such as the Wii to improve social skills in people experiencing schizophrenia. My result is zero (as expected)as it is somewhat ahead of its time. However I am really interested in backing up my argument theoretically via dicussion of its use with other conditions. If you feel you could provide some assistance, or signpost me, I would really appreciate it! Many thanks

Mershon W. Hinkel, MSPH, OTR/L said...

Holly,
Conduct a Google Scholar Search using the terms-virtual reality social skills- and see what turns up. After reading some of that literature I am sure that you will find some basis to support the use activities with the Wii in building social skills. Good luck! Send me a direct email and we can discuss this in more depth.
Mershon