Photo courtesy of Nationwide Children's Hospital
Virtual reality is helping patients at Nationwide Children's Hospital, such as 13-year-old Cole Eichelberger, pictured above. Eichelberger has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which often confines patients to wheelchairs at an early age and prevents them from taking part in clinical trials.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University have been using a surprising method to help patients with certain conditions: video games.
Researchers at Nationwide Children’s have created a video game that can be used to measure muscular ability in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic disorder that affects young boys and causes muscles to substantially weaken over time. The effects of the genetic disorder are most commonly measured with a walking test. However, this method does not allow patients in wheelchairs to participate in clinical trials.
Now, though, patients’ upper body movements can be gauged with a video game called ACTIVE-seated (Ability Captured Through Interactive Video Evaluation).
“We needed an outcome measure that would be reliable, valid and also give numerical results so we could measure change (big or small) over time,” says Lindsay Alfano, a research physical therapist at Nationwide Children’s.
The game measures upper body movements through a Kinect gaming camera, which tracks the patients’ reaching distances while they push a force field toward zombies and other threatening monsters. Needless to say, this is a lot more exciting than previous tests.
“Many of our patients are big video game fans and certainly like playing ACTIVE-seated more than performing the traditional assessments,” says Alfano. “We can always count on them for honest feedback if we upgrade the software, too.”
Photo courtesy of Nationwide Children's Hospital
Linda Lowes and Lindsay Alfano analyze data from Eichelberger's video game.
ACTIVE-seated is not only more accurate and entertaining. In fact, the benefits of it seem endless.
“We really like that ACTIVE-seated is affordable, doesn’t require a lot of training to administer and is portable,” says Natalie Miller, another research physical therapist at Nationwide Children’s.
The game has given accurate measurements of muscular ability so far and is already being used in a number of clinical trials.
“Our hope is that ACTIVE-seated will be used in many more clinical trials so that all children have the opportunity to receive experimental treatments regardless of their ability to walk,” says Linda Lowes, director of clinical therapies research at Nationwide Children’s. “We also plan to continue to expand the use of ACTIVE-seated by validating its use in other diseases, such as other forms of muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy and other neuromuscular diseases.”
Researchers at OSU have also been using video games to provide a more accessible form of constraint-induced movement therapy for stroke survivors. Both video game programs are monumental steps forward in their fields, and even have the potential to help patients with other conditions in the future.
Valerie Mauger is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at adeperro@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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