Evaluation of an electronic video game for improvement of balance

Virtual environments have been investigated for

fitness and medical rehabilitation. In this study, the Sony

EyeToy (R)and PlayStation 2 (R) were used with the Anti-Grav(TM) game to evaluate their potential for improving

postural balance. The game required lateral head, body, and

arm movements. The performance on balance tests of

subjects who trained for 3 weeks with this game was

compared to the performance of controls who were not

trained. Training subjects showed improvement for two of

the three tests (each testing a different facet of balance),

suggesting specificity of training, while control subjects did

not show significant improvement on any test. Simulator

sickness questionnaire results showed a variety of mild

symptoms, which decreased over the training sessions.

Motor learning analysis of the game scores showed that

mastery had been achieved on the easier level in the game,

but not on the second level of difficulty. This reflects the

potential for continued learning and training through

advanced levels within a game. A model parameter using

the time constants of game score improvement was developed, which could be used to quantify the difficulty for any video game design. The results suggest that this video game could be used for some aspects of balance training.