Cool Kiwi science: Mouse aid for stroke victims

I still prefer the cockroach stomping app.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/unlimited/8223240/Cool-Kiwi-science-Mouse-aid-for-stroke-victims
The path to rehabilitation following a stroke can be long, arduous — and downright boring. 
So researchers at Callaghan Innovation (formerly Industrial Research/IRL) — have been thinking about how to put a bit of fun into rehab for those suffering from the main cause of adult disability in New Zealand and the rest of the developed world.
Their latest invention is a giant mouse game controller. 
Essentially it’s a computer mouse built into an arm support, which enables a stroke victim to then slide the mouse across a desk.
Accompanying the mouse is a suite of computer games, where players are encouraged to swot mosquitoes, catch butterflies, hit targets and so on. 
The process of retraining the brain to learn how to move certain parts of the body again requires countless repetitions of basic movements.
By gamifying therapy, the idea is patients will be motivated to increase their repetition of certain movements — intensifying their rehabilitation — and be motivated to exceed their previous efforts. 
Callaghan human movement scientist Dr Kimberlee Jordan has been working on the project alongside lead scientist and distinguished engineer Marcus King. Jordan says the development of the mouse has diverse influences.  
“It’s a mashup,” she says. 
Around 2008, IRL scientists working at Burwood Hospital’s spinal unit in Christchurch were looking at developing technology to help people with spinal injuries.
While there, the scientists also started working with Burwood’s brain injury unit after realising the magnitude of the stroke problem.
“A lot of people who have had strokes never really recover function of their arm,” says Jordan. “That’s a problem in terms of them being independent, and for those who are not of retirement age, being able to go back to work.
“We had been working with a gaming company, Stickmen Studios, so we decided we were going to make some computer games that would encourage a lot of arm movement to help stroke patients rehabilitate.”
Jordan says previous stroke rehabilitation research had shown the use of robots, paired with basic computer games, had proved effective.
But the robots were expensive — each costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. “So the thought was we could take some aspects like the game and make it more fun, and instead of a robot you’d need a game controller,” she says “Also around that time Wii games had come out. It all melded together in this idea that we could produce pretty affordable game controllers that people with strokes could use, and use a lot of the principles that had gone into the robot research, but basically make them cheaper and more user-friendly.”
The giant mouse is the second stroke rehabilitation tool fully developed by the Callaghan scientists. 
The first, a handlebar-type game controller called the Able-X, went on the market in 2010.
The Able-X is sold by Kiwi company Im-Able, which will also sell the giant mouse, marketed as the Able Reach, in early 2013. 
The computer games, developed by gaming firm CerebralFix (which is housed along with the Callaghan scientists in Christchurch’s Epic innovation hub) are also being constantly updated. 
 “The gaming element of this does make the whole rehabilitation process a lot more fun,” says Jordan. 
“Rehabilitation is so repetitive. If you think about it, effectively your brain has been damaged and you need to relearn how to move ... so the games do make it quite a lot more fun and it provides a way to track your progress.”
Each treatment using the device involves about 16 hours of game playing over a few weeks.
Both the Able-X and the giant mouse have been trialled with stroke victims whose recovery had plateaud following previous therapy. 
In both cases patients showed improvements in arm function by using the tools. 
Another two tools are in IRL’s development pipeline and Jordan says the vision is all four will form a rehabilitation system that will provide a journey to stroke recovery. 
“People who have had strokes get about six months of therapy and then that’s pretty much it,” says Jordan.
“And often people aren’t fully recovered or even close to being fully recovered. Some people will never fully recover, but I’d say most people coming out of this system will have really maximised what potential they have for recovery.”