Physioland: a motivational complement of physical therapy for patients with neurological diseases

The number of patients with mobility constraints is increasing as a result of neurological diseases. From the substantiation of the lost functions recoveries, it was possible to determine that the nervous system is able to reorganize itself expressing its property called neuroplasticity. Physical therapy is the well-known way to encourage and promote this ability. However, repetitive traditional physical therapy exercises may become boring and patients eventually abandon their physiotherapeutic programs. The development of new environments that motivate patients to continue with their treatments may be a suitable alternative or complementary tool. Serious games seems to be the ideal tool to provide them. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present Physioland, a serious game already developed which can be a motivational complement for the physical therapy of patients with neurological diseases. Physioland is a non-invasive system that uses Image Processing Techniques and Artificial Intelligence to monitor patients and adapts some exercises of traditional physical therapy to electronic game situations. To determine whether Physioland would be motivating and challenging enough to increase a patient's desire to perform the exercises and continue/complete the rehabilitation process the game was tested in a clinical environment using two samples: one with twelve health professionals in the area of physiotherapy and the other with eleven patients with neurological diseases. The research team carried out a questionnaire-based survey. This questionnaire is an adaptation of another one already validated in the literature—the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). For the analysis of the data obtained with the Likert scale, percentages were calculated. The answers to the open questions were subject to a content analysis. The results showed that the developed game, Physioland, proved to be highly motivating for patients at the physiotherapy clinic where it was tested. If the results are similar in other clinics, Physioland, can be used as a good and effective complement to traditional physical therapy for patients with neurological diseases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Physical Therapy for Cerebellar Ataxia

Ataxia, the incoordination and balance dysfunction in movements without muscle weakness, causes gait and postural disturbance in patients with stroke, multiple sclerosis, and degeneration in the cerebellum. The aim of this article was to provide a narrative review of the previous reports on physical therapy for mainly cerebellar ataxia offering various opinions. Some systematic reviews and randomized control trial studies, which were searched in the electronic databases using terms “ataxia” and “physical therapy,” enable a strategy for physical therapy for cerebellar ataxia. Intensive physical therapy more than 1 hour per day for at least 4 weeks, focused on balance, gait, and strength training in hospital and home for patients with degenerative cerebellar ataxia can improve ataxia, gait ability, and activity of daily living. Furthermore, the weighting on the torso, using treadmill, noninvasive brain stimulation over the cerebellum for neuromodulation to facilitate motor learning, and neurophysiological assessment have a potential to improve the effect of physical therapy on cerebellar ataxia. Previous findings indicated that physical therapy is time restricted; therefore, its long-term effect and the effect of new optional neurophysiological methods should be studied

Questioning Classic Patient Classification Techniques in Gait Rehabilitation: Insights from Wearable Haptic Technology

Classifying stroke survivors based on their walking abilities is an important part of the gait rehabilitation process. It can act as powerful indicator of function and prognosis in both the early days after a stroke and long after a survivor receives rehabilitation. This classification often relies solely on walking speed; a quick and easy measure, with only a stopwatch needed. However, walking speed may not be the most accurate way of judging individual’s walking ability. Advances in technology mean we are now in a position where ubiquitous and wearable technologies can be used to elicit much richer measures to characterise gait. In this paper we present a case study from one of our studies, where within a homogenous group of stroke survivors (based on walking speed classification) important differences in individual results and the way they responded to rhythmic haptic cueing were identified during the piloting of a novel gait rehabilitation technique