Design to Assist Better Youthhood for Adolescents with Lower-Limb Disability through Virtual Reality Sports

Abstract

Background: Youths with lower limb dysfunction display low levels of sports participation, which limits their growth and self-development, both physically and mentally. Recently, VR technology has proven its profound value in the psychological evaluation and treatment, rehabilitation, and immersive training of people in need. We have proposed, designed, and developed a VR rock-climbing game for youths with lower-limb dysfunction that allows them to engage in enjoyable and purposeful in-game tasks that simultaneously bring about intensive real-world exercise. Methods: Pilot studies were conducted on college students whose lower limbs were fixed to chairs. Heart rate monitoring, a flow questionnaire, interviews, and observation were conducted for each participant to evaluate the impact of the VR rock-climbing game. The collected data were trimmed on the basis of Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item–total correlation (CITC) to guarantee the data’s reliability. Results: The average value of each flow experience dimension was greater than 4 (0.76 < SD < 0.91). According to the flow-based analysis and the whole-process feeling distribution (WPFD), the evaluated study brought about the participants’ happiness and a sense of mastery and achievement. Conclusions: By bringing about a deep and enjoyable immersion in VR, it remarkably promotes the participants’ intention to participate in exercises.

Virtual Reality to Promoting Sports Engagement and Some Technical skills in Junior Football Athletes: A 12-Week Randomized Controlled Trial

“…VR is a sophisticated technology which has become more popular and has been used in several fields such as health (Asadzadeh, Samad-Soltani, Salahzadeh, Rezaei-Hachesu, 2021;Lindner, 2021;Peláez-Vélez, Gacto-Sánchez & Martínez-Carrasco, 2023), employment (Ho, Wu & Yen, 20232023, education until sports (Hoyos, Yusti & Sandon, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022;Wiebe et al, 2022). VR presents a sports activity carried out in a virtual environment.…”

“…Data from previous studies had documented about VR that was integrated into sports training (Bedir & Erhan, 2021;Geisen, Fox & Klatt, 2023;Khundam & Nöel, 2021;Sohail, Firdos, Ikram & Talha, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022). In addition, previous research on VR only focused on several research methods, for example scoping reviews (Giakoni-Ramírez, Godoy-Cumillaf, Sebastián Espoz-Lazo, Duclos-Bastias & Martín, 2023;Mouatt et al, 2020), experiments (Harrison, Potts, King & Braun-Trocchio, 2021;Dolu & Camliguney, 2022;Mcclure & Schofield, 2020), but there has been no study about VR being associated with sports engagement and technical skills in football athletes through experimental methods.…”