An innovative VR-based vestibular rehabilitation system

Dizziness caused by peripheral vestibular nerve disease might lead to the imbalance of center of gravity, which in turn might affect the quality of daily life. Vestibular function rehabilitation exercise is thought to be able to improve the symptom of dizziness effectively. However, since rehabilitation process is boring, lacks of challenges and adaptive training contents and lacks of assessment method based on exercise analysis, the effectiveness of rehabilitation exercise is thus reduced. In this research, Cawthorne-Cooksey vestibular rehabilitation training exercise in clinical use was modified as an innovative interactive rehabilitation training system in which stereo imagimg, interactive technology and game technology were applied. In this research, clinical test (17 subjects, 6 training sessions) has been successfully carried out, during the experimental process, the task performance data, the time-history of the deviation distribution of center of gravity and subjective feeling questionnaire survey data of the patient is completely measured and recorded. The experimental result has verified the functionalities of this system, in the mean time, through the task performance evaluation and the analysis of level of balance, the medical effect of this system in assisting the patient to perform dizziness rehabilitation training has been proved, and the clinical observation also shows that the patient has higher willingness and motive to use such new system to perform rehabilitation.