In the past couple of decades, there have been a few universally hailed technological hallmarks of a futuristic society. One of these technologies has caught the hearts and imaginations of society: virtual reality, which has become a real reality for therapists who use virtual rehabilitation in their practices.

According to Greg Burdea, PhD, general chair and organizer of the International Workshop on Virtual Rehabilitation (IWVR), virtual reality means the training of a patient using a virtual reality component. “You either use virtual reality exclusively as a training environment, or you supplement conventional training with a virtual reality component,” Burdea explains. “The patient is training within a simulation. He is looking at the screen and he is involved with this virtual reality, which, many times, takes the form of a video game.”

Depending on the extremity trained, therapists can train mundane tasks like walking, or they can use technology that entertains the patient, like piloting a virtual airplane through hoops using the ankle. “People in Israel have used an environment based on the IREX system,” Burdea says. “The patient sees himself in the environment and they can play a soccer game and be the goalie, or break a bunch of balloons, or ski down slopes, or snowboard. They can do all of these things in virtual reality.”

Burdea is careful to explain that these activities are not intended to replace therapists. Instead, he sees it as empowering them. “It will make his or her life easier,” he says. “It is empowering them like a force amplifier using this as a robot and computers doing tasks that the therapist otherwise could not do.”

Bringing It All Together
To promote this technology, Burdea launched the IWVR. Having just completed its fifth year last August in New York City, the workshop attracts attendees from all around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Chile, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Israel. The event featured many sponsors, including the federal government with the National Science Foundation and the US Army Medical Research Command; as well as private companies such as Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, and Hocoma, Zurich, Switzerland.

The workshop featured 35 presentations, including a keynote speaker, Joyce Fung from Canada’s McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital, Laval, Quebec, Canada, who discussed the barriers that exist for the technology to migrate from the lab to the clinical practice. “We are working very hard to bring down the barriers,” Burdea says. “How do we overcome this present cultural divide between the technologists and engineers and clinicians? Each goes to different schools, each are educated differently, and normally don’t talk to each other. Yet rehabilitation is an area that necessarily puts these two groups together. You cannot develop the technology in isolation, and the therapists assist in the development of the simulations in order to develop and test the equipment. The therapist has to learn the new equipment. So it’s a learning process both ways. It’s challenging to bring the two groups together.”

The IWVR workshop also provided—as part of the $300 ticket price ($150 for students)—a dinner cruise. In addition to the presentations, the workshop offered continuing-education (CE) classes. It was the first year that physical therapists were able to attain CE credits, as the conference received approval from the New York and New Jersey physical therapy boards. Additionally, the workshop featured a formal exhibit room for the first time, which hosted eight companies that manufacture products related to virtual rehabilitation.

The event took place August 29–30 in New York City. Next year’s conference will take place in Venice, Italy. Those who are interested in next year’s event should visit www.iwvr.org for more information.