page_title: Video game rehabilitation
section_title: Results
hierarchical_section_title: Video game rehabilitation / Results
caption_attribution_description: "Wii Balance Board" Nintendo Wii Fit
context_page_description: Video game rehabilitation is a process of using common video game consoles and methodology to target and improve physical and mental weaknesses through therapeutic processes. Video games are becoming an integral part of occupational therapy practice in acute, rehabilitation, and community settings. The design for video games in rehabilitation is focused on a number of fundamental principles, such as reward, goals, challenge, and meaningful play. ‘Meaningful play’ emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome, apparent to the player through, visual, physical and aural feedback. Platforms that feature motion control, notably the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft's Xbox Kinect, Sony's Eye Toy, and virtual reality have all been effective in this field of research. Methodologies have been applied to all age groups, from toddlers to the elderly. It has been used in a variety of cases ranging from stroke rehabilitation, cerebral palsy and other neurological impairments, to tendinitis and multiple sclerosis. Researchers have promoted such technology based on the personalization of gaming systems to patients, allowing for further engagement and interaction.
context_section_description: Timed Up and Go test (TUG) scores have been seen to improve after having engaged in gaming rehabilitation. Several studies have produced output that suggests that Wii games are able to effectively increase patients' scores after a certain period of rehabilitation through them. Stroke recovery patients and patients with an Acquired brain injury are two such examples of this output. Both patient classes have been shown to display slightly better improvements when using the Wii game or Wii balance board than when engaging in regular therapeutic methodologies. Continuing past these classes, studies are continually proving that these scores can be increased in a variety of patients with a variety of physical disabilities and from a variety of backgrounds.
  In recent studies, professionals have proven that the therapist and patient create a positive relationship during physical rehabilitation with video games.
  Balance and energy expenditure are other great improvements seen amongst patients of gaming rehabilitation methods. Methods such as using the Wii Fit board and Wii Sports games have proven effective at increasing these numbers amongst a variety of patients. Elderly and cerebral palsy patients have been the focus of these outputs, as both have the ability to improve these categories of their lives. Specifically, elderly have been shown to display poor balance and mobility due to aging conditions, resulting in a need for rehabilitation intervention and cerebral palsy patients display a combination of poor posture and poor balance which result in a need for therapy, as well. Both, after a period of engaging in a variety of Wii-based games, have shown improvement comparable to, or better than, what they display during regular methodologies, gaining support for these systems. Specifically, for the elderly community, interactive video-game based system exercise on the balance can improve balance after 6 weeks of implementation Elderly patients with Parkinson's disease showed improved performance in activities of daily living after 14 sessions of balance training, with no additional advantages associated with the Wii-based motor and cognitive training.
  Finally, motor-skill rehabilitation has been proposed as another possible way in which games can be used for rehabilitation purposes. Stroke patients suffering upper extremity motor difficulties have been the primary focus of this subject and, in this case, a variety of gaming environments have been experimented with. Output has shown that their Fugl-Meyer UE scores and their Functional Independence Measure scale score increase after a period of engaging in virtual rehabilitation, suggesting that their mobility dysfunction decreased and their degree of independence increased due to the intervention. Additionally, output has suggested improved motor skills on a higher level, having several researchers suggesting positive improvements in their stroke patients as a result of virtual rehabilitation methods. At this higher level, researchers have suggested improved ability to walk, or ambulation, and improved use of larger motor skills after intervention. One other class of patients that has been studied less frequently in this category of rehabilitation is cerebral palsy patients. Ability to walk certain distances without the use of an assistive device was the method of measurement for this category. After a period of working with a Wii-based system, it was shown that a patient who struggled with walking large distances before, was able to walk a noticeably longer distance. This suggests an improvement in larger motor skills, whereas the stroke patients demonstrated an improvement in finer motor skills, focused strictly on their use of upper extremities during the gaming rehabilitation.
caption: The Wii Balance Board, which is bundled with Wii Fit, measures both a person's weight and center of balance.
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