Approximately 60 to 80 percent of amputees suffer from phantom limb syndrome, a sensation where a missing limb feels as if it is still attached to the body. Often to the detriment of the amputee, the phantom limb is perceived as clenched or in a painful position. Aside from drugs and electrical stimulation, patients can find relief via mirror therapy, which involves the use of a mirror to trick the brain into thinking that the actions of a remaining limb are being performed by the phantom limb.
While using virtual reality (rather than a mirror) as a therapeutic method for phantom limb research is not entirely new, one student named Benjamin Blundell, in collaboration with the Advanced Interfaces Group from the University of Manchester, has hacked the popular Microsoft Kinect gaming platform to build a more immersive virtual reality world for phantom limb sufferers. The Kinect has offered many hackers the technology and opportunity to re-purpose the motion sensors and game controls for different applications relatively cheaply and efficiently.
For his specific project, Blundell used the Kinect and wireless sensors to detect the rotation and positioning of the amputee’s existing limb so that the amputee’s missing limb could be virtually ”filled in”. The patient was instructed to wear virtual reality goggles, to make this experience more realistic, and Blundell expects specific games to be developed for users in the future.
While the Kinect hack is still not quite as cheap as a mirror box, preliminary results from the informal patient trial show promise and Blundell and his fellow researchers hope to take the technology forward and explore the possibilities. A paper on the project has been accepted for publication:
S. Pettifer, T.L.J. Howard, B. Blundell, and D. Edwards. An immersive virtual environment for phantom limb pain rehabilitation. In Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (GRAPP), February 2012.
For a quick overview of the project, check out the video below.
