Many TBI patients in the Navy don’t always perform their independent therapy or do their therapy properly, so as a result, they don’t always make steady progress toward a full recovery and may even risk further injury.
To provide patients with a safe, engaging, and easy way to maintain their therapy regimens, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) www.onr.navy.mil uses “Mobile, Virtual Enhancements for Rehabilitation” (MOVER) software to help TBI patients.
MOVER is an easy, safe, and engaging way for patients to follow therapy on a laptop or PC with a Microsoft Kinect sensor plus the software system can also be equipped with a camera function. When operating MOVER, a user just turns on the computer and camera, stands still, while the software maps out a virtual skeleton on screen. This skeleton consists of brightly colored lines and mirrors the person’s movements through each therapy exercise.
During the workout session, users receive coaching in the form of pop-up text boxes of color shading in a certain area of the virtual skeleton. For example, if someone is leaning too far right, a colored shape will appear on the left side of the screen, highlighting where and how to correct the movement.
“Eventually, we want to improve the virtual coaching so it provides commands and encouragement to users vocally and they in turn, can respond back,” said James Niehaus, Scientist at Charles River Analytics Inc. www.cra.com.
Charles River Analytics is the lead company working with ONR to develop the MOVER software. The company also hopes to create a mobile app that would enable smartphones to alert users about workout times without the need to set an alarm manually.
Potential MOVER users need to be approved by their physical therapists according to individual capability and mobility, tech savviness, and even video game experience. The exercises featured in the software are standard for TBI therapy including lunges, knee raises, and squats. Patients meet with their therapists at the beginning of the week to design a customized weekly exercise schedule and review their progress as it is tracked by MOVER.
MOVER has been successfully tested by researchers. Later this year, MOVER will be launched for a six month on-site pilot study of the software involving nearly 40 TBI patients and therapists at Boston-based Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital http://spauldingrehab.org. If that goes well, they might initiate a home-based outpatient test study among other participants.