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.