Innovative virtual reality technology revolutionizes stroke therapy

News.medill.northwestern.edu: BY RIAN ERVINAND THOMAS OWEN – MARCH 01, 2012.

Stroke patients can now rev up recovery as a guest at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with the March Hare as their therapist.

Playing 3-D games in a fantasy virtual reality environment such as Alice in Wonderland is a new avenue for rehabilitation and it sure beats monotonous sessions of moving objects from one box to another to repair motor skills.

“Virtual reality therapy is so popular right now because patients get bored,” said artist Daria Tsoupikova, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Art and Design.

With virtual reality, patients get excited. “They can see something colorful, they can see some kind of environment, other characters, and have a story behind the therapy,” she said.

Advances in stroke therapy are rapidly evolving with virtual reality techniques. Tsoupikova, along with Derek Kamper, the principal investigator, Dr. Nikolay Stoykov, a biomedical engineer, Randy Vick, an art therapist, Yu Li, an art research assistant and a group of occupational therapists and engineers from the Hand Rehabilitation Laboratory at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, collaborated to develop a virtual reality environment to assist stroke patients with hand rehabilitation. Read More