Balance rehabilitation using custom-made Wii Balance Board exercises: clinical effectiveness and maintenance of gains in an acquired brain injury population

Abstract

Balance disorders are a common impairment after an acquired brain injury (ABI). Neurorehabilitation programs focus on the rehabilitation of balance skills to enhance patients' self-dependency. The Wii Balance Board has been adopted with rehabilitative purposes due to its low cost and widespread battery of exercises. However, this entertainment system is oriented to healthy people and cannot easily adapt to the patient's motor (and possible cognitive) deficits. The objective of this study was two-fold: a) to study whether custom-made rehabilitative exercises on a force platform could improve the balance condition of ABI patients compared with conventional physical therapy programs; and b) to study if their clinical effects persisted in absence of the virtual training. To prove the first hypothesis, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) was carried out involving 17 ABI participants (control group: 8 participants; experimental group: 9 participants). To prove the second hypothesis a follow-up study (FUS) was carried out involving 7 ABI participants. The participants of both studies underwent 20 1-h sessions, from 3 to 5 sessions per week. The participants were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the treatment (RCT, FUS) and 1 month after the therapy (FUS). Significant improvements were detected in some scales for those participants who underwent the virtual therapy (RCT). The effects persisted over time (FUS). Balance training through low-cost force platforms and custom-made exercises can provide lasting clinical benefits to ABI chronic patients when compared to conventional treatments.

Advantages and limitations of virtual reality for balance assessment and rehabilitation

“…Several authors worked on the rehabilitation of people with Parkinson disease or elderly people. The studies rely on the weight shifting of the patient, either on a balance board [29,30] or on an inclinable force platform [31,32]. Yen and al.…”

Prescription Software for Recovery and Rehabilitation Using Microsoft Kinect

“…The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has also used Kinect with consumer games as a supplementary treatment, and has received a positive reception from patients. However, patients have been unable to make full use of many of the games due to their complexity and the need for more tailored therapy, problems which have also been identified in other games-based rehabilitation research [9], [10].…”

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“…There currently exists a range of computer-based language programs, mechanical motor rehabilitation products such as balance boards and finger/grip strengthening devices and, since the advent of the Wii and Kinect, a number of motion sensor based systems designed to aid recovery of motor skills [e.g. 20,21,22]. However, as stated above, no systems currently exist which integrate these therapeutic domains.…”