Upper limb virtual rehabilitation for traumatic brain injury: initial evaluation of the elements system.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effectiveness of a tabletop virtual-reality (VR) based upper-limb rehabilitation system (called Elements) for promoting movement skill in patients with TBI.


METHODS
An ABA case study design with multiple baselines was employed. Baseline performance in this design is contrasted against the results during the treatment phase.


METHODS
Three patients with TBI participated in 12 1-hour sessions of VR-based training. The VR system consisted of a 42-inch tabletop LCD, camera tracking system and tangible user interface. The system requires participants to move an object to cued locations while receiving augmented movement feedback to reinforce speed, trajectory and placement. Upper limb performance was assessed using these three system-measured variables and standardized tests. Trends in the time-sequence plots for each patient were assessed by sight inspection of smoothed data and then by statistical analyses.


RESULTS
Participants demonstrated improvements on movement accuracy, efficiency and bimanual dexterity and mixed improvement on speed and other measures of movement skill.


CONCLUSIONS
Taken together, the findings demonstrate that the Elements system shows promise in facilitating motor learning in these TBI patients. Larger scale trials are now deemed a viable step in further validating the system.
Mumford
Nick
N
Department of Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Duckworth
Jonathan
J
Thomas
Patrick R
PR
Shum
David
D
Williams
Gavin
G
Wilson
Peter H
PH
D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000502:physiology*; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000503:physiopathology; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult