Use of the Wii balance board system in vestibular rehabilitation

Abstract

Therapies for the treatment of vestibular rehabilitation are focused on postural control, the risk of falls, and the inclusion of patients in activities of daily living (ADL). Recent studies show that virtual reality provides a low-cost system for rehabilitating patients with vestibular disorders. In this paper, we introduce an interdisciplinary project to develop a virtual rehabilitation system, Vestibular Virtual Rehabilitation (V2R), for patients with vestibular disorders. Specifically, we propose an innovative way for interaction between the system and the patients. In the developed system, patients interact with the system following auditory cues, not visual inputs. Due to the features of the disorder of the patients --visual dependency- the proposed system is very promising, as the first results indicate. To obtain this objective, we have generated a low-cost system that is based on the Nintendo® Wii Balance Board® (WBB) and is designed specifically to rehabilitate patients. The results suggest that the use of a virtual rehabilitation system with auditory cues increases the postural control in patients with vestibular disorders.