 (Soldiers enjoying video games.) Through a report by HealthcareIT News, Kinetic Muscles, Inc. has received funding from the Department of Defense to begin "Phase II" of their study on whether video games will be able to help patients that are suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many of those that are in brain inury rehabilitation have been using video games to help patients with motor skills, improve their balance and coordination, and help with other cognitive ailitites that the patients may have suffered through their brain injury. The results from Kinetic Muscles' "Phase I" studies did show that the patients who were playing with the "Hand Mentor", which helps hand dexterity, had improvements with dexerity, memory, cognititve abilities, memory, and thought processing. The article states that gaming is a positive way for soldiers to be stimulated, and since most of the soldiers grew up playing, video games, it is easy for them to be engaged in this type of therapy. The reason the Department of Defense is funding this research is because TBI is a growing concern for the military, so they feel that treatment and rehabilitation should be improved for their soldiers. Most soldiers can't afford a stay at a hospital or a visit to a clinic, so the promise of a video game being able to help with rehabilitation will be a relief for many. Video games will also be able to change the attitudes toward brain injury rehab as something that can be both fun and engaging. Source: www.traumaticbraininjury.net/video-game-based-therapy-may-help-treat-tbi/
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 (An Akili game.) One of the goals for video games in the health industry is to be labeled as a treatment for the diseases they were designed for, but Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) approval has always been the main obstacle in this goal's achievement. That is why two companies, Akili Interavtive Labs Inc. of Boston and Brain Plasticity Inc. of San Francisco, are doing everything in their power to receive recognition from the FDA for their games that were designed to treat ADHD. The two companies are conducting research suggesting that action games can sharpen players' ability to conentrate and may have other health benefits. If research does go well, video games will be able to be prescribed to patients instead of medications that may have troublesome side effects. Although these companies are optimistic, there is still a long way to go because the FDA has never approved of video games as a prescription. As medication costs continue to rise, people would like an alternative to their treatments and that is why these companies are campaigning so strongly for their games. Akili co-founder Eddie Martucci suggests that people want an alternative to drugs and that is what their games will become, another choice in treatment options. With research that has already been conducted, it has been proven that video games have the ability to strengthen concentration in the players. As more research is done, these companies will be able to make games that are designed to specifically help people with certain diseases, giving people a different choice in their treatment plan. Source: online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444130304577558840153698520.html
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 (Nursing home residents receiving an iPad.) Nursing homes and senior centers are always trying to get their residents to participate in doing different activities so they can stay healthy and alert. Sometimes residents do not feel inspired enough to do any activitites so they tend to stay lethargic and not get anything done. That is why more physical therapists and occupational therapists are turning to the iPad to help motivate nursing home residents to try new therapeutic treatments. At the Liberty Commons of Columbus County, physical and occupational therapists have integrated the iPad to engage patients in therapeutic activities that are tailored to the residents' specific need of care. With the iPad, occupational therapists can help the patient reach a new level of independence by completing activites on the iPad. The ways that the iPad have helped patients is by having them focusing on improving endurance, dynamic standing tolerance, functional reach, communication, visual perception, motor cordination, and strength. With the iPad, nursing home residents will have more motivation to stay healthy and active while at the same time, gain a new sense of independence. Source: www.libertyhealthcareandrehab.com/lccolumbus/2011/12/22/new-trend-in-therapy-the-ipad/
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 (Nike+ Kinect) When Nike introduced its "Nike+" technology, it was designed to help people exercise anywhere and everywhere. People would have a pedometer in their shoe and it would be able to track how far a person has ran or how many calories a person has burned. Even though this new technology was tracking people as they exercised, there was no centralized routine that people needed to follow. Nike and Microsoft are aiming to change that with "Nike+ Kinect". Nike+ Kinect is being described as having the same personalized exercise regime provided for Nike athletes in a person's home. Instead of just tracking people's footsteps, the Kinect tracks the entire body so there will always be constant feed-back as a person is doing the exercise. The points that the people will be able to gain are "NikeFuel" pints, which are the same points that people gain when they exercise with the Nike "FuelBand", so tracking progress will be easily available. Nike+ Kinect will also be able to build a training program for the person based on the person's preferences meaning everyone may have a different experience with this game. The tracking capabilitites of the Kinect will notice people who have problems moving and therefore have the possibilities of correcting. If people pplay with the Kinect on a regular basis, they will be able to improve their bodies with daily exercises. Source: www.nike.com/plus/products/kinect/
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Category:
Newsletter
July has been a fantastic month for video games in the rehab space. First Sheryl Flynn's Blue Marble Game Co (disclosure: major funders to Games 4 Rehab) launched Treasure of Bell Island. 
 Hello Games4RehabJuly has been a fantastic month for video games in the rehab space. First Sheryl Flynn's Blue Marble Game Co (disclosure: major funders to Games 4 Rehab) launched Treasure of Bell Island. Treasure of Bell Island challenges cognitive skills often impaired in individuals with post-concussion syndrome. Players can exercise their cognitive skills in the comfort of their own home while simultaneously allowing their therapist to monitor their progress from an Internet enabled browser. That is right, it provides a cognitive challenge for the player and provides useful data to clinician. Those that are interested in participating in their Beta, please contact BDBlueMarble or go directly to their Beta sign-up link. The Beta is free but to play the game you will need an Android Tablet. Additionally Jintronix is in the news by winning the grand prize at Montreal's International Startup Festival with their Kinect-based rehab program. The goal of Jinotronix was to use the Kinect to make games for rehab patients to make their physical therapy more fun and affordable. Since it uses Kinect, their rehab no longer has to be confined to just the rehab center, it can also be done from the comfort of the patient's home. It doesn't appear that they are doing any demos or Betas. If anyone has more information on their products please Blog about it on Games4Rehab. It is great to see so much activity in this space as no one company is going to be able to create all the games necessary to cover the entire rehabilitation space. Games 4 Rehab is super excited to announce our first ever Games 4 Rehab seminar August 24th and 25th in Los Angeles California USA. For those of you who cannot make it physically, no worries. We intend to live stream as much as we can from each track. We will make the presentations available to all Games 4 Rehab members. At the moment we intend to have several tracks: game designer, game programmer, game artists, technical writing, game researcher/clinician and business development. If any of you fit in that category and would like to present please hit Chris Ashford up directly - http://games4rehab.com/Games4Rehab/ (you will need to be logged into to access this profile) We want people to review games, we want to learn about research being done and we want to hear from end users. How do these games fit in to your day? Underwriters: the company making all this happen is Blue Marble Game Co. We will be using their office space so big thanks to Sheryl Flynn Ph.D. and her crew for making that happen. Also a big thanks to Ed Kasanders president of Exergame Fitness & Motion Fitness for his support and encouragement. Recently many of you have contacted me about advertising, we finally have a mechanism for that. Getting involved with this event will help on that end. If you represent a company that would like to help underwrite or display your products at the event, connect with Chris Ashford here. Stay tuned for more info! Games4Rehab  BLOG - 18 July We are super excited to announce our first ever Games 4 Rehab seminar August 24th and 25th in Los Angeles California USA. For those of you who cannot make it physically, no worries. We intend to live stream as much as we can from each track. We will make the presentations available to all Games 4 Rehab members.  Featured Video RESET aims to restore cognitive and sensorimotor skills to improve quality of life and enhance duty performance following mild traumatic brain injury. RESET will capitalize on innovations in multi-touch, immersive tabletop computing to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of evaluation and rehabilitation for skill performance.  Featured Company - 16 July As a finalist for Microsoft's TechStars-based Kinect Accelerator program, company Jinotronix has made a large step in helping rehab patients by winning the grand prize at Montreal's International Startup Festival with their Kinect-based rehab program.
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We are super excited to announce our first ever Games 4 Rehab seminar August 24th and 25th in Los Angeles California USA. For those of you who cannot make it physically, no worries. We intend to live stream as much as we can from each track. We will make the presentations available to all Games 4 Rehab members. At the moment we intend to have several tracks: game designer, game programmer, game artists, technical writing, game researcher/clinician and business development. If any of you fit in that category and would like to present please hit me (Chris Ashford) up directly - http://games4rehab.org/Games4Rehab/ We want people to review games, we want to learn about research being done and we want to hear from end users. How do these games fit in to your day? Underwriters: the company making all this happen is Blue Marble Game Co. We will be using their office space so big thanks to Sheryl Flynn Ph.D. and her crew for making that happen. Also a big thanks to Ed Kasanders president of Exergame Fitness & Motion Fitness for his support and encouragement. Recently many of you have contacted me about advertising, we finally have a mechanism for that. Getting involved with this event will help on that end. If you represent a company that would like to help underwrite or display your products at the event, connect with me here. Stay tuned for more info! Here is a link to the event - Games 4 Rehab 2012  
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