The EU-funded PlayMancer project is using existing 3D video gaming engines to develop innovative ways of interaction between the player and the game world. The project is focusing on supporting the development ‘universally accessible games’ so that players of all abilities can use the games, especially for physical rehabilitation.

The project is aiming to shorten the game production chain and make it more cost effective based on generative modelling, and thus reduce the cost of offering a full-fledged pre-designed gaming world.

The project is developing a series games modules in two application domains: physical rehabilitation, and therapeutic support and lifestyle management programs for behavioural and addictive disorders.

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3. Video game system valuable tool in rehabilitation

For patients on Unit 58 at the Foothills Medical Centre, rehab can be fun and games.

The unit, home of the centre’s Tertiary Neuro Rehab Program, utilizes a Nintendo Wii video game system as part of its rehabilitation efforts for patients with brain and spinal cord injuries, those who have suffered strokes and others with different neurological diagnoses.

Andy Ganden, a recreational therapist on the unit, says the Wii is just one of many tools used for rehab but adds it’s a valuable one.

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Wii rehab might sound like radical intervention for video game addicts, but it’s actually effective physical therapy for patients recovering from strokes, injuries, or surgeries. Otherwise tedious strength and coordination exercises go by a little easier if they involve waving a wireless controller to play virtual bowling, tennis, and golf. But it doesn’t stop there. The next step in video game rehab is “Air Guitar Hero,” which would allow amputees to rock out with the immensely popular Guitar Hero game using a mechanical arm wired to their chest muscles.

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They tested the Air Guitar Hero system on Iraq veteran Jon Kuniholm, who lost his right hand three years ago. With electrodes attached to what was left of his arm and a little practice, Kuniholm was able to score a respectable 70 percent on the easy level. “You’re doing something simple,” he says. “It’s not rocket science. But you have to do it fast and you have to time it right.”

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For two months now, patients at Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center have been playing games to get well.

Suwannee Health and Rehab has implemented a Nintendo Wii game system to enhance its therapy program. The gaming system benefits patients who are diagnosed with various aliments, including cardio-pulmonary difficulties, joint problems, osteoarthritis and stroke.

Wii is an interactive system in which players act out the movements of the games they are playing. In Wii baseball, for example, players swing the game controller as if it were a bat.

Lana Rhoden, rehab director at Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center (formerly Suwannee Health Care Center), said the Wii system enhances patients’ recovery and lets them have fun in the process.

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American soldiers in combat drive tanks and Humvees. But when members of the military return to the United States to recover from critical injuries, they need help re-learning how to drive regular cars. The nation’s army rehabilitation hospital, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, has a new tool to get veterans driving their own automobiles and their own destiny. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti shows it to us.

Christopher Levi is driving a classic American vehicle. A Chevrolet truck. The driver’s view is different from the real world. But then again, Christopher is a different driver from what he was eight months ago.

He is a double amputee. Christopher’s legs were shattered by a bomb while he was riding in a humvee near Baghdad’s Sadr City. This driving simulator now steers his way through rehabilitation, monitoring his heart rate through a clip on his ear. The goal is to transition from driving in combat to driving in cities.

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Judith Markelz has relied on volunteers for years to help the war wounded and their families. They’ve brought meals, DVDs, event tickets and an endless supply of cookies to help comfort those whose lives are suddenly upended by a bomb or a bullet.

So when a new volunteer, Les Huffman, arrived at the chaotic 1,000-square-foot room used for the Warrior and Family Support Center in January 2007 and asked what Markelz needed, the program manager said a new video game system.

But Huffman, the president of a small commercial development firm, wanted to do more. And when Markelz conceded she could use a little more room, that’s what she got: a $5 million building designed like a Texas Hill Country home with a therapeutic garden, classroom, video game room and kitchen – all paid for by private donations. It’s the first center of its kind built on an Army post.

“I asked for an Xbox 360 and I got a 12,500 square-foot building,” she laughs. “Nice trade-off.”

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Videogames aren’t just for bored couch potatoes anymore and one interactive gaming system may just be the key to a Brookline firefighter returning to work.

Monday, April 16, 2007: Owen Thompson, a Billerica resident, rushed into a burning house wearing nearly 90 pounds of equipment. He never imagined the fire would leave him out of work for more than six months while he received extensive physical therapy and surgeries.

“I had an entire ceiling fall on me,” said Thompson. “After the fire was out we were clearing the ceiling and wall to ensure there was no hidden fire and trying to take down the second floor ceiling and the ceiling all of a sudden let go. They literally had to come with axes and saw me out. I sustained [damage] to the hard cartilage in the rear of my [knee cap]. Part of it actually sheared off.”

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Just prior to beginning her work with Thompson, Brinklow and the clinic had caught word of a new alternative exercise treatment for patients that was proven to improve their strength and entertain them at the same time, the Nintendo Wii gaming system. While the Wii is already a popular tool for geriatric patients inside assisted living facilities and senior centers across the country, the videogame is now all the rage as a therapeutic tool for stroke, pediatric and orthopedic patients.

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At 66 years young and still recovering from a recent spinal surgery, Marsha Stevens may not seem like the typical gamer. But on a recent morning, she gingerly stepped out of her wheelchair and onto the rectangular white balance board of the Wii Fit and cued up her favorite game, Table Tilt. She slowly shifted her body left and right to gently maneuver the balls into the hole on the screen. “C’mon, go in,” she even yelled at one point.

Stevens is one of more than 200 patients at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco who have benefited from the Wii-Habilitation program, which uses the Nintendo Wii video console to help patients recovering from sustained various neurological injuries. “The difference between this and other treatments I’ve had is that I look forward to this,” Stevens said. “I feel no pain when I’m playing. I become so focused on the game that I can relax. Every hospital should have a Wii!”

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A teen getting into a video game is nothing new, but Dennis, a ninth-grader at Hoggard High School, was on Nintendo’s Wii Fit system as part of his physical rehabilitation program to recover from a torn ligament in his right knee.

Using a motion-detecting balance board, Dennis goes from virtual ski jumping to head-butting soccer balls, helping him readjust to balancing with both legs.

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From heraldnet.com:

“The gift that kept children playing golf, baseball and bowling in front of the family television set last Christmas brings that same fun to older adults recovering from strokes and joint replacement surgeries.

Nintendo’s Wii Sports is a video gaming system that uses a television screen and handheld controls. Last spring, the more advanced Wii Fit

The controls and balance board link players to a virtual version of themselves on the screen doing everything from aerobics to yoga.”

Read more…