Virtual Reality Mobility Training

posted on 08 Nov 2018 by chek

A VR system to help patients relive walking experiences.

Brief

Persons with various medical conditions may not be able to experience day-to-day activities that able-bodied person may take for granted in daily living. For example, patients with dementia may not be able to ambulate safely to walk outside of a nursing home.

The Virtual Reality Mobility Training project aims to explore how VR can be used to help patients with such mobility constraints relive walking experiences. The VRMT experience will allow them to experience meaningful daily experiences, like shopping in a supermarket, in a safe and enjoyable virtual environment.

The current prototype uses a custom mechanically-enhanced version of an omni-directional VR treadmill (the Kat VR system) as locomotion input to the VR experience that was implemented with 360˚ videos of real-life activities. The mechanical enhancements aimed to provide additional safety mechanisms and were developed via an iterative process with feedback from users.

In our preliminary study (n=35) with able-bodied participants including 8 therapists, 75% indicated that they would choose to use the VRMT technology if it was offered as a form of rehabilitation.

Members

List the project members here.

Outputs

Conceived a prototype system with preliminary testing performed on able-bodied participants by SIT senior undergraduates from the Physiotherapy Programme and Mechanical Engineering Programme at University of Glasgow.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by an Ignition Grant from the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).