Playing Computer Games Helps Feeling Life

More than half of the people with Parkinsons disease who took part in a small pilot study led by the University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing and Red Hill Studios showed small improvements in walking speed, balance and stride length after three months of playing computer-based physical therapy games.

And when they successfully completed one game level, they "often moved on to harder levels for more beneficial effect. The subjects improved their games scores while improving their gait and balance," he added.

Parkinsons disease is a chronic, progressive neurological disorder of unknown cause that targets cells in the brain that control movement. It affects about 1 million people in the United States. Symptoms include tremors, slowness of movement, poor balance, and stiffness in the limbs and trunk.

UCSF and Red Hill Studios, a California serious games developer, were the first US research team to be awarded federal funds to develop low-cost computerized physical therapy games, which the UCSF statement describes as a "burgeoning field".


Teams from both organizations worked together to design nine "clinically inspired" games that aim to improve coordination in people with Parkinsons disease.

In earlier work, the team at UCSF had already established which specific body movements and gestures are beneficial for slowing the physical progression of Parkinsons.

The team at Red Hill developed the games around these movements. The games are similar to the motion sensing games you can play on the Wii and the XBox (Kinect). The players have to win points by moving their bodies in certain ways.

A UCSF press release dated 19 October describes how the specialized games are not like off-the-shelf computer games. They have been designed to encourage scientifically tested physical movements to help people whose motor skills have been affected, for instance as in Parkinsons disease.

Each game has several levels of difficulty, and the clinical team was also able to tailor them to suit each patients particular ability range.





Bob Hone, creative director of Red Hill Studios and the lead principal investigator of the study, said each participant was able to find his or her gaming "sweet spot", the point where the physical challenge was neither too hard nor too easy, but "just right".

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