Balance rehabilitation using custom-made Wii Balance Board exercises: clinical effectiveness and maintenance of gains in acquired brain injury population

[EN] Balance disorders are a common impairment after an acquired brain injury (ABI). Neurorehabilitation programs focus on the rehabilitation of balance skills to enhance patients’ self-dependency. The Wii Balance Board has been adopted with rehabilitative purposes due to its low cost and widespread...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Llorens Rodríguez, Roberto|||0000-0002-8677-8707, Gil-Gómez, José-Antonio|||0000-0001-9954-2480, Alcañiz Raya, Mariano Luis|||0000-0001-9207-0636, Colomer Font, Carolina, Noé Sebastián, Enrique, Albiol Pérez, Sergio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/76699
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/76699
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Acquired brain injury
Balance
Posturography
Virtual rehabilitation
Wii Balance Board
EXPRESION GRAFICA EN LA INGENIERIA
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] Balance disorders are a common impairment after an acquired brain injury (ABI). Neurorehabilitation programs focus on the rehabilitation of balance skills to enhance patients’ self-dependency. The Wii Balance Board has been adopted with rehabilitative purposes due to its low cost and widespread battery of exercises. However, this entertainment system is oriented to healthy people and cannot easily adapt to the patient’s motor (and possible cognitive) deficits. The objective of this study was two-fold: a) to study whether custom-made rehabilitative exercises on a force platform could improve the balance condition of ABI patients compared with conventional physical therapy programs; and b) to study if their clinical effects persisted in absence of the virtual training. To prove the first hypothesis, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) was carried out involving 17 ABI participants (control group: 8 participants; experimental group: 9 participants). To prove the second hypothesis a follow-up study (FUS) was carried out involving 7 ABI participants. The participants of both studies underwent 20 1-h sessions, from 3 to 5 sessions per week. The participants were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the treatment (RCT, FUS) and 1 month after the therapy (FUS). Significant improvements were detected in some scales for those participants who underwent the virtual therapy (RCT). The effects persisted over time (FUS). Balance training through low-cost force platforms and custom-made exercises can provide lasting clinical benefits to ABI chronic patients when compared to conventional treatments