Researchers are now doing a new virtual reality rehabilitation program for those with cognitive deficits that are due to acquired brain damage. Virtual reality allows researchers to control the sensory inputs that go into a person’s brain. This type of therapy may be able to improve many cognitive symptoms associated with brain injuries such as anoxic brain injury, hypoxic brain injury and brain stem injury. In the future virtual reality may become an extremely useful tool that researchers will increasingly use to shape the brain. You can watch the video about this treatment here. The press release can be found here. This is certainly a fascinating development that should help many who currently have many devastating brain injuries. This type of brain manipulation method will likely be much safer than other brain manipulation tools such as transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation.
The PREVIRNEC platform enables therapists to personalize treatment plans: intensive rehabilitation can be programmed automatically for the required length of time, the results monitored and the level of difficulty adjusted according to patients’ performance in previous sessions.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers is currently working on the project. The UPC’s CREB, coordinated by lecturer Daniela Tost, is in charge of 3D software, the Guttmann Institute, a benchmark in neurorehabilitation, contributes neuropsychological and therapeutic knowledge, and a group from the Rovira i Virgili University is responsible for distributed software.
The aim of this project is to use software to meet the treatment needs of patients with acquired brain damage. The software promotes the rehabilitation of affected cognitive functions by representing everyday, real life situations in a virtual world.
