G4H 2006: Physical Therapy with Games
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-09-28Dr. Skip Rizzo, Institute of Creative Technology at the University of Southern California, began working with Game Boys and has quickly upsized to full virtual reality systems. While the promises of virtual reality made in the 90s still has not come to fruition, PC based virtual worlds have advanced to a point that they can be used to test for and treat health problems. Dr. Rizzo is now working on rehabilitation with games and virtual environments. He is experimenting with a large variety of alternative input and output devices including head mounts, multi-screen systems, hand trackers, head trackers, etc.
For rehabilitation people must do repetitive motion based tasks to practice using the muscles again. Because these tasks are mundane and non-engaging people tend to trail off on keeping up with rehabilitation routines. By adding games we will be able to motivate people to continue to do their rehabilitation.