Virtual reality in the world of sports and rehab

When I say the word “sports”, it’s something that many people can connect with . Whether they play sports, watch it, or simply know someone who plays a sport.

As a sports fan or player, the worst thing to see happen is the player getting injured. Then, the player has to go to rehab and work out whatever injury occurred. There is never a good time frame when that player’s injury will get better or if it will ever get better .

First, let’s talk about the basic rehabilitation for a football player if he breaks his ankle. In this case, the player would have to go through extensive rehab to maybe get his ankle back all the way to one hundred percent. The physical therapist will put him through rigorous workouts and towards the end of his recovery, he have to wear a cast and walk with a cane.

Second, about half the people that leave physical therapy don’t go home and complete these exercises, and there is no way for the physician to keep track of the patient from home.

Ean Orr stated “During my rehabilitation process, I discovered that I couldn’t keep up with the neck physical therapy homework exercises, no matter how motivated I was, and that my physical therapist had no way to monitor or guide me once I left his clinic.” This is to show that basic rehabilitation using basic exercises isn’t always the best method .

Now, let’s talk about virtual reality (VR).

Virtual reality. When most people think of virtual reality, they tend to think of gaming. However, virtual reality also plays a huge role in the rehabilitation for injured sports players, military vets and people with disabilities.

Ean Orr decided to bring rehab and VR into one thing to create a better experience and recovery for the patient. “VR has been defined as ‘a realistic simulation of a three-dimensional environment, created using interactive software and hardware, and experienced or controlled by movement of the body,’ or as an ‘immersive, interactive experience generated by a computer.’” VR was created to make physical therapy a successful and fun experience.

While using VR, the technology is able to monitor and measure the progress. From there, the physician’s  job is to get a full report upon completion and let the patients know they are on the path to recovery.

Virtual reality is already being used in the military field. The VR that is being used is called the “Hook,” which is when the users feel that they are playing a game that they actually enjoy rather than doing rehabilitation. The body motions that the various game options require to play are actually programmed to replicate the exercise regimen that has been prescribed for their rehab.

Orr states “The first step was to design a VR experience that will guide users to do the right movements in the real world, while not feeling they are doing boring physical therapy exercises, but rather playing a fun VR game. The next stage was adding additional weights to increase resistance, improve the rehabilitation process and make it more efficient.”

VR is a better alternative to going to basic rehabilitation.

The staggering difference between sitting in a therapist’s office doing rehab (and then procrastinating on the home exercises) versus visual stimulation while playing VR video games that mirror neurons in your brain to help heal makes it easy to see how this product will sell itself.