As many people find physical therapy boring and frustrating, Taipei Veterans General Hospital has developed an intelligent rehabilitation system that combines therapy with gaming to help patients focus and find a sense of fun during treatment.
The system combines wearable sensor devices, virtual reality and cloud computing, which allows people to do physical therapy at home or in hospital. It was put to use last month after gaining approval.
During the initial deployment phase, the hospital is focusing on people with adhesive capsulitis — a condition also known as frozen shoulder, which is characterized by stiffness and pain in the shoulder joint.
Lee Si-huei (李思慧), an attending physician at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, said the hospital designed a game in which people with frozen shoulders perform movements along with cartoon characters that are displayed onscreen, making the treatment process more fun and easy.
“The patients do not have to remember the movements or how many times [they have to do them]. They only have to turn on the computer and do the movements along with the progam,” she said.
The system can also pick up readings on the user’s physical condition and set a more suitable therapy session for them. The information can also serve as a reference for designing better medical devices.
“Physical therapy could last for a long period, so we tried to add some fun elements, hoping to increase patients’ motivation and make them more focused during the process,” Lee said.
Physical therapy for people with frozen shoulders can take up to seven years and some people find it difficult to visit the hospital regularly, she added.
The hospital’s experiment on two groups of patients with frozen shoulders — two sessions per week for three weeks — showed that those using the intelligent rehabilitation system have seen a marked improvement compared with those using conventional therapy, Lee said
The system gives people more flexibility, as they can easily fit the physical therapy sessions into their daily schedules and do them wherever they want, and return to the hospital after a certain period to adjust their exercise regime based on their progress, Lee said.
As the system works though the Internet, family members of the patients who are often busy or live overseas can also participate in the physical therapy process, she added.
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