Wii-Hab

I found this article today: the first one I've noticed that uses the term "Wii-Hab". (Unfortunately, the urban dictionary's definition is not quite the same!) We need a new definition:

"The use of the Wii in rehabilitation"

I'm getting more and more interested in principle, scientifically and commercially about the possibility of better rehabilitation tools that can be shipped to a greater number of people.

As the population ages and the number of people having suffered a stroke or other injury requiring physical and neurological rehabilitation increases, it becomes more important to provide health care solutions that can be accessed by these people. So I believe in principle (as I've stated before) that lower cost, lower fidelity solutions may be the way forward and the Wii seems to be stepping into this gap. Scientifically, I'm keeping a close eye on this, as such technology is only going to become widespread when enough studies have been done that prove an improvement in recovery due to the use of the Wii. These studies are already out there and are increasing in number, so it's probably just a matter of time. Commercially speaking, I work for a company that provides motion capture solutions to the health care industry, so I'm naturally curious (and contractually obliged!) to spot the up-coming waves in health care and medical research and make sure we're in the water and moving forwards when they start to break.

However, I think there's more to rehabilitation than just Wii-Hab style tools and I know that the bigger picture includes higher technology also, more prescriptive techniques than just game-play and quantitative analysis of movement.

So it remains to be seen exactly where this will go and what therapy we'll be undergoing to recover from injury or surgery in the future, but it's undeniable that some forms of motion capture technology will be implicated in almost all cases as our yardstick for wellness in this field is effectively co-ordinated movement.