Newswise — Stroke victims and people suffering from weakness of their upper extremities may now be able to go mall shopping, thanks to a "virtual mall" developed by a University of Haifa Occupational Therapy doctoral student.
Debbie Rand, who developed the system and investigated its effectiveness, said that the virtual reality program aids both the physical and cognitive rehabilitation of the stroke victims. It allows them to wander through the mall, as it were, to choose the department to enter, to make purchases, and to check their basket of goods.
The system, which was developed with the assistance of a Canadian technological firm, puts the user in front of a large TV screen and photographs the person within the virtual environment. "The patient operates the environment by movements of his or her body, and this encourages the person to use his body and hands," Rand explained. "The patient sees himself and receives feed back about his movements without the need to put on any accessories.
"These advantages," she believes, "strengthen and improve the movement and functioning of people who have experienced neurological or orthopedic injuries."
Rand developed the tool under the guidance of Prof. Tamar Weiss of the University of Haifa's Dept. of Occupational Therapy and Prof. Naomi Katz of the Hebrew University's School of Occupational Therapy.
The doctoral candidate praised virtual reality as an occupational therapy tool for evaluating and dealing with people who find it difficult to plan, think out, and solve problems because of a weakness of their upper extremities.
Up to now, she said, seven patients have been treated with the virtual mall after they had suffered a stroke. The patients' proficiency with the virtual mall, she continued, improved significantly after treatment.
Rand is presenting her virtual shopping mall at a conference on Virtual Reality in Rehabilitation taking place this week at the University of Haifa.
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