The University of California San Francisco School of Nursing and Red Hill Studios, an educational games startup, have collaborated to help people with Parkinson’s disease by developing a suite of therapeutic games. After a recently concluded three month pilot study, the researchers showed that playing computer-based physical therapy exercises can help people with Parkinson’s improve their gait and balance.
(taken from link to news piece)
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Showing posts with label Parkinsons Disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parkinsons Disease. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Ready for some Wii-habilitation? Feb 2011
By RICHARD BARBER
London - When world-renowned flautist Sir James Galway fell down the stairs, badly breaking his left wrist and shattering his right elbow, he feared his career could be over.
But the musician, who made his name with a classical repertoire, found the solution in a very modern technology - the Nintendo Wii games console.
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Belfast-born Sir James had his accident early on a December morning in 2009, a fortnight after his 70th birthday.
After waking in his house near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, at 4.30am with his mind racing, he made his way out of his bedroom, along an unlit corridor and into his music room to write two letters that had been preoccupying him.
The task completed, he walked towards the dark corridor leading to his bedroom, but took a step to the left and pitched headlong down 13 wooden stairs, each with a metal rim.
“I didn’t have my glasses on,” he says. “Who knows what damage I’d have done to my face if I’d been wearing them?”
As he plunged down the stairs, Sir James tried to twist his body so he didn’t land face first. “I was conscious of protecting my teeth. But the natural instinct is to put out your arms to lessen the impact of the fall.”
The result was a fractured left wrist and a broken and dislocated right elbow. He was bleeding from two cuts to his head.Somehow, he managed to stagger back up the stairs, stumble to the bathroom and call for his wife, Jeanie.
“I was just so relieved that Jimmy had been strong enough to brace himself as he fell,” says Jeanie. “He could so easily have flipped over and broken his neck.”
Even so, she was taking no chances and insisted her husband have an MRI scan of his head - it took half-an-hour and revealed no damage.
However, an X-ray showed the bone in his right elbow that allows the lower arm to bend had been badly broken.
Sir James’s future ability to hold a flute at the correct angle would hinge on the surgeon’s skill in restoring mobility to the shattered joint.
During a two-hour operation, five titanium screws, each about one-and-a-half inches long, were inserted in the elbow, with the hope that the shattered bones would knit together around them. His left wrist was put in a cast.
Within a week, Sir James was having therapy on his right arm.
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London - When world-renowned flautist Sir James Galway fell down the stairs, badly breaking his left wrist and shattering his right elbow, he feared his career could be over.
But the musician, who made his name with a classical repertoire, found the solution in a very modern technology - the Nintendo Wii games console.
+/- Click for more/less
Belfast-born Sir James had his accident early on a December morning in 2009, a fortnight after his 70th birthday.
After waking in his house near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, at 4.30am with his mind racing, he made his way out of his bedroom, along an unlit corridor and into his music room to write two letters that had been preoccupying him.
The task completed, he walked towards the dark corridor leading to his bedroom, but took a step to the left and pitched headlong down 13 wooden stairs, each with a metal rim.
“I didn’t have my glasses on,” he says. “Who knows what damage I’d have done to my face if I’d been wearing them?”
As he plunged down the stairs, Sir James tried to twist his body so he didn’t land face first. “I was conscious of protecting my teeth. But the natural instinct is to put out your arms to lessen the impact of the fall.”
The result was a fractured left wrist and a broken and dislocated right elbow. He was bleeding from two cuts to his head.Somehow, he managed to stagger back up the stairs, stumble to the bathroom and call for his wife, Jeanie.
“I was just so relieved that Jimmy had been strong enough to brace himself as he fell,” says Jeanie. “He could so easily have flipped over and broken his neck.”
Even so, she was taking no chances and insisted her husband have an MRI scan of his head - it took half-an-hour and revealed no damage.
However, an X-ray showed the bone in his right elbow that allows the lower arm to bend had been badly broken.
Sir James’s future ability to hold a flute at the correct angle would hinge on the surgeon’s skill in restoring mobility to the shattered joint.
During a two-hour operation, five titanium screws, each about one-and-a-half inches long, were inserted in the elbow, with the hope that the shattered bones would knit together around them. His left wrist was put in a cast.
Within a week, Sir James was having therapy on his right arm.
Click for more
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Nintendo Wii helps Parkinson’s sufferer overcomes illness
A business analyst who was struck down with debilitating Parkinson’s disease has overcome her symptoms – by using the Nintendo Wii.
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High-flying Jo Collinge, 48, was diagnosed with the disease disease 18 months ago after her shakes and sleeplessness were originally blamed on executive stress.
The trembles in her right leg became so bad she could not walk across her daughter’s school playground.
She began using her childrens’ Wii Fit shortly after and says the programme has ”massively improved” her symptoms.
Mother-of-two Jo now uses the Wii for 45 minutes every day and has designed her own work out using the slalom, step, hula hooping, yoga and even BOXING games.
She said: ”When I got the diagnosis it was a terrible shock. I had been hoping they would tell me there was nothing wrong but they said I had Parkinson’s, which is incurable.
”I started using the Wii of my own accord, because exercise improves the condition, and I have really noticed a difference.
Click here for more
+/- Click for more/less
High-flying Jo Collinge, 48, was diagnosed with the disease disease 18 months ago after her shakes and sleeplessness were originally blamed on executive stress.
The trembles in her right leg became so bad she could not walk across her daughter’s school playground.
She began using her childrens’ Wii Fit shortly after and says the programme has ”massively improved” her symptoms.
Mother-of-two Jo now uses the Wii for 45 minutes every day and has designed her own work out using the slalom, step, hula hooping, yoga and even BOXING games.
She said: ”When I got the diagnosis it was a terrible shock. I had been hoping they would tell me there was nothing wrong but they said I had Parkinson’s, which is incurable.
”I started using the Wii of my own accord, because exercise improves the condition, and I have really noticed a difference.
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Taken from Red Hills landing page:
Games for people with Parkinson's Disease? Cool!!
Red Hill Studios and the School of Nursing at the University of California San Francisco have recently begun the second phase of a project to build a suite of therapeutic games that will help people with Parkinson's Disease (PD) improve their balance. Patients play the games by performing movements that have been shown to be beneficial for improving balance in people with PD. The patients' movements are captured by custom hardware and then processed by custom software developed by Red Hill Studios. These games will provide people with PD an immersive and interesting world in which to practice gait and balance exercises.
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