Use of a Low-Cost, Commercially Available Gaming Console (Wii) for Rehabilitation of an Adolescent With Cerebral Palsy
By Deutsch, Judith E.; Borbely, Megan; Filler, Jenny; Huhn, Karen; Guarrera-Bowlby, Phyllis; Physical Therapy (PTJ) , Vol. 88, No. 10, pp. 1196-1207Publication Date: October 2008
Case study exploring the use of a low cost, commercially available gaming system to augment the rehabilitation of an adolescent with cerebral palsy. The participant was a 13-year-old boy with spastic deplegic cerebral palsy. Eleven training sessions ranging from 60 to 90 minutes each were held during his attendance of a summer program for children with developmental disabilities. The gaming system used was the Nintendo Wii, which comprises a remote controller and motion sensors that map the user’s motions into an immersive, interactive 3-dimensional virtual environment displayed on a television screen. The remote also provides the user with haptic feedback, such as the feel of a ball hitting a racket. Training was performed using the Wii sports-games software, including boxing, tennis, bowling, and golf. Participant trained in both sitting and standing positions, and interacted with additional players in the last two sessions. The gaming intervention addressed 3 therapeutic goals: (1) postural control, (2) functional mobility, and (3) visual-perceptual processing. Outcome measures showed improvement in all areas, notably functional mobility, where participant’s ambulation increased during training from 15 ft to 150 ft, and continued to increase to 250 ft after training. Also noted was the unexpected therapeutic benefit of adding a typically-developing child as a second player, whose gaming strategy the participant imitated, resulting in a greatly-improved gaming score which he maintained in a subsequent session. Implications for further research using this intervention are discussed.
Published by: American Physical Therapy Association (Website:http://www.apta.org)
