A study by researchers in Melbourne, Australia, sought to evaluate the effectiveness of Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) training.
A number of VRE rehabilitation programmes have been designed in recent years, mainly to improve upper limb function. However, before this technology gains widespread use, evaluation of the scientific evidence supporting VRE-assisted rehabilitation is needed.
The latest review aimed to assess the rationale, design and methodology of research investigating the clinical impact of VRE training on ABI upper-limb rehabilitation. In order to do this, 22 VRE studies were reviewed.
VRE systems are essentially computer-based simulations of real life that users are able to interact with. Scientists use VREs to help deal with a wide range of different health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, rehabilitation following acquired brain injury, and learning to use prosthetic limbs.
There are two main types of VRE rehabilitation software: 'teacher animation' and 'game like'. Teacher-animation systems use a virtual tutor to demonstrate different actions that the user needs to copy, while game-like VRE systems use targeted goals to engage the user and get them to perform different actions within the context of the game.
By using a VRE, patients can practise and improve their problem areas in a controlled and safe way. Re-learning of tasks such as cooking poses obvious dangers if done in reality without full control, but given a VRE such threats can be removed to ensure the safety of the patient. With the data collected from VRE systems, scientists can also look at the learning curves associated with these tasks and monitor how a patient is performing and improving.
The review concluded that, while few studies used a conventional randomised controlled design, moderate support was shown for both teacher-animation and gamelike systems.
While VRE-assisted rehabilitation shows early promise, the authors state that clinicians should be cautious about adopting these technologies before adequate data is available.
Reference
Mumford, N. & Wilson, P. H. (2009) Virtual reality in acquired brain injury upper limb rehabilitation: evidence-based evaluation of clinical research. Brain Injury, 23 (3): 179-191
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