Gamification of Rehabilitation: Implications for motor recovery & brain plasticity after stroke

Wednesday March 23, 2022 4pm PST (7pm EST)

Speaker Bios:

Bev Larssen is a physical therapist and a PhD candidate in the Brain Behaviour Lab at UBC. Her research focuses on interventions targeting the recovery of arm and hand function after stroke. She uses a neuroimaging approach to investigate the mechanisms and neuroanatomy that support motor (re)learning when movement errors are amplified during practice. Bev is also the Chair of the BC Stroke Network, where she organizes monthly seminars for researchers and clinicians interested in furthering stroke research and care.

Cristina Rubino is a PhD Candidate in the Brain Behaviour Lab at UBC. Her research focus is on the role of eye movements and vision in learning novel motor skills. Cristina is applying this basic neuroscientific understanding of the relationship between human brain function and behaviour to better understand how visuomotor function is impacted after stroke.

Short summary of presentation:

We will be summarizing evidence on the benefits of using virtual reality (VR) and computer games as an adjunct to physical rehabilitation interventions targeting the recovery of upper limb impairments after stroke. In this talk we will summarize examples of how VR-based interventions are implemented and present some recent work highlighting how this training modality can influence brain plasticity.

Presentation objectives

At the end of this talk, attendees will learn:

  • Examples of gamified upper limb rehabilitation interventions
  • A summary of the benefits and barriers to gamifying rehab
  • How neuroimaging techniques are used to index brain plasticity