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New Wii-Habilitation Program Developed
3rd Aug 08
According to Examiner.com, Dr. Justin Liu, chair of back and trauma rehabilitation at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, has developed a program named "Wii-habilitation". The program is designed for use in therapy for victims recovering from strokes, spinal injury, broken bones and surgery. Patients have been exercising themselves back to health using movements similar to that of traditional therapy through Nintendo's Wii console.
And St. Mary's isn't the only organisation to make use of the Wii for physical therapy - Ohio State University Medical Center's Dodd Hall Rehabilitation Hospital has been prescribing Wii time for patients.
This use of the Wii console along with the introduction of Wii Fit has opened new doors for many organisations, in hospitals, nursing homes and others as a therapeutic tool. We are constantly hearing new stories of how exercising with the Wii console is benefiting the infirm and less able as an aid in physical therapy so in the future this form of rehabilitation could become more common place. It will be interesting to see what developers come up with next.