New and Exciting Gaming Technology to Rehabilitate Stroke Patients

Best Innovation to Improve Patient Care in the Cardiovascular Innovation Award
Winner of the NHS Innovation Award 2011
Limbs Alive
Professor Janet Eyre and Mrs Janice Pearse
Royal Victoria Infirmary and Newcastle University
What is it?
Limbs Alive uses the most up-to-date technology to rehabilitate patients after a stroke. Patients do their therapy at home using specially designed Nintendo Wii- style video games but also under the watchful eye of a specialist NHS therapist.
If a stroke (blood clot to the brain) damages the part of the brain controlling movements, patients are often left with weakness down one side of their body, particularly affecting the use of their arms. It can take a year or more of therapy to re-learn the use of a weak arm.
Less than a fifth of patients actually regain independence following a stroke. The aim of the Limbs Alive system is to make stroke rehabilitation both fun and more effective.
What’s new?
The Limbs Alive system combines the latest Nintendo Wii-style video games and NHS occupational therapy expertise in an integrated package.
The team at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle worked with a professional gaming company to develop a series of 10 games, each with 30 skill levels. Patients can choose from everything from knife throwing to juggling, tiger training to trapeze skills.
They can play on their own, with their husband or wife, children or grandchildren. It is suitable for everyone from the very young to the very old - and even works for people who have never used a computer before.
The aim is to motivate patients to maintain their therapy in the long term by making it fun, focussed and far more convenient, and the use of Cloud server technology means patients can do their therapy where they wish, when they wish, freeing vital resources within the NHS.
The system records their progress, and the team is now developing the technology for therapists to analyse information about patients’ performance of arm and hand movements online so they can provide feedback via the internet. The need for hospital visits will be greatly reduced, patients will have the opportunity to undertake more frequent therapy sessions, therapists will be able to supervise more patients and patients should regain greater independence.
Who will use it?
An estimated 150,000 people have a stroke in the UK each year occupying around 25% of long-term hospital beds. Stroke has a greater impact on disability than any other chronic disease, with at least 450,000 people in England severely disabled as a result of a stroke. This costs the NHS and wider economy in excess of £6 billion. (source: Stroke Association)
It is hoped that hospitals will initiate therapy using Limbs Alive and patients will continue therapy in their homes using consumer consoles and bespoke accessories.
@limbsalive @uniofnewcastle @medicalfutures
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