Effectiveness of Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation in Virtual Reality Games for Improving Upper-Arm Function in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Funded by: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
PI’s: Ayanna Howard & Yu-Ping Chen

The objective of the research was to examine the impact of auditory stimulus on improving upper-arm function in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Current interventions for children with CP emphasize the importance of massive practice of functional tasks in various contexts while providing sufficient performance feedback. However, the ability to actively engage in such effective intensive intervention has typically been limited due to costs and limitations on therapist’s time. To deal with this issue, tailored interventions effective both within and outside of the clinical setting are needed that can easily adjust the level of task difficulty while providing sufficient feedback for motivating the child. One such intervention that has shown promise is the use of virtual reality (VR) rehabilitation games. In this research, we sought to examine the effect of rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) during VR interventions with respect to improving upper-extremity function as measured through range of motion, movement time, path length, and smoothness.

Publications: Chen, Y., Garcia, S., Howard, A. M., “Effect of Feedback From a Socially Interactive Humanoid Robot on Reaching Kinematics in Children With and Without Cerebral Palsy: A Pilot Study”, Developmental Neurorehabilitation. 2018. 21(8), 490-496. PMID: 28816558.

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