By the need to focus on the game in the virtual world, walking is again more easily transfered to an unconscious activity, even in a clinical setting.
In collaboration with the University of Antwerp and RevArte, XPLab has developed a VR application to facilitate stroke rehabilitation. Currently, the transition from walking/cycling in a controlled environment to walking/cycling in a public setting is challenging. The stimuli in a controlled environment are much lower compared to an uncontrolled situation in public. To minimize this transition and facilitate the process, XPLab created a virtual environment in which users can walk or cycle while being connected to the speed of a treadmill/exercise bike, all within a controlled setting. The game includes various difficulty levels (such as the number of objects, size and speed of objects, and the size of the crosshair used to track objects), and the speed of the treadmill/exercise bike can be easily adjusted using external sensors that measure and transmit the speed to the application. The goal is to use the VR headset as a tool for distracting the patients from focusing too much on the walking on the threadmill and to trigger walking without being aware of walking.
For research purposes, it is essential in this project to collect and process as much data as possible for the therapists at the University of Antwerp. To facilitate this, a dashboard was developed in Unity, which displays the most important data, provides a visual representation and summary of the data, and allows for the export of raw data to .csv format. The ECS (Entity-Component-System) architecture was chosen in Unity to separate the data, logic, and object concepts, enabling independent functioning of all the components. This approach offers the advantage of easier and faster implementation of expansions without requiring extensive code modifications. Consequently, the game can be incrementally built upon and expanded.
The speedometer has been custom built to be able be used on every possible threadmill. In addition, a cadence sensor can also be used on a hometrainer in order to use the application also for excercising cycling.
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