Supervisors info:
Φιλιππίδης Φίλιππος, Λέκτορας, School of Public Health, Faculty of
Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK
Νανάς Σεραφείμ, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Φιλίππου Αναστάσιος,Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Introduction: Cerebral vascular accident is one of the main causes of death and disability. Hemiplegia after a stoke is accompanied by reduced standing up ability, increased oscillation while standing and non symmetric weight distribution. Virtual Reality and interactive video games like Nintendo Wii and its electronic balance board (WBB), are well accepted and may be easily adapted along the conventional treatment.
Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate if patients with CVA at the post acute phase may have positive results in regaining balance by using the Wii platform and its activity games. Furthermore we wanted to find out if the software PhysioFun Balance Training may give us results similar to Berg Scale, which is the most popular scale for balance evaluation.
Method: Twenty four (24) patients with hemiplegia after CVA at the National Rehabilitation Center were separated into two groups by non random order. The intervention group had 10 sessions of 30 minutes each, by using WBB and activities of WiiFit Plus, 3 times per week and 2 sessions for assessment. All the patients were evaluated in the beginning and at the end of this study both by Berg scale and the built in evaluation program of Physiofun Balance training and WBB. For the remaining 2 days of the week the intervention group was following the custom rehabilitation program and so did the control group during the whole study. Six (6) different parameters were studied; Berg Scale (BBS), parameters of 30’’ standing evaluation of Wii Balance Board as AREA (area that the center of pressure was moved), COP L-R (deviation of the center of pressure at the frontal plane), COP F-B (deviation of the pressure center at the sagittal plane), DEV L-R (deviation of the weight distribution through the legs) and the total score of PhysioFun Balance training. Finally, the changes of each parameter between the two groups were compared.
Results: The scores of the 6 parameters were significantly improved at the intervention group; statistically significant difference was found at the control group only at Berg scale, with higher scores by 3,5 (p=0,02),while the intervention group had plus 8,83 (p <0,01). Particularly at AREA parameter, the intervention group eliminated the surface by 132,48cm2 (p=0,03), while the control group increased it by 16,44cm2 (p=0,79), without though statistically significant difference (p=0,22).
Conclusion: By this study it was at some point shown that electronical balance board of WII and its software may contribute positively, as a statistically significant progress was revealed by the individual progress of the intervention group. The results of each group were not significantly different; therefore the necessity for more studies on larger sample and more sessions is raised. As for the evaluation tool used, it seems it can be auxiliary used to show the tendency of improvement on the parameters it measures
Keywords:
Stroke, Balance, Wii balance board, Rehabilitation, Physical therapy.
