Leveraging online virtual worlds for upper extremity Rehabilitation

Virtual environment based systems have been used for rehabilitation of individuals following a stroke. They can be customized to provide specific rehabilitation motor therapy goals, but can be costly to develop and deploy. This paper describes a low cost alternative using commonly available technologies to quickly create interesting virtual environments for upper extremity rehabilitation. The Nintendo Corporation's (Kyoto, Japan) Wiimote, and Linden Labs' (San Francisco, CA) multiplayer online game Second Life can be combined to form the basis for a flexible and extendible rehabilitation environment. To evaluate the feasibility of rapid game creation using these low cost elements, a "Concentration"-like memory-matching game was created where players must match pairs of like-colored spheres floating in 3D space. The resulting environment was created in approximately 20 hours and provides a functional interface that can be further modified to target gross or fine motor control activities.