Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Games For Parkinson’s Patients

Study Parameters And Outcome

These Purdue games train the body and brain of Parkinsons patients: BTN LiveBIG

Seventy-four patients with PD played the goalkeeper game between 40 and 120 minutes after a dose of levodopa , the most efficacious drug therapy for PD. L-DOPA is a precursor to dopamine that is taken up by the dopaminergic neurons, which convert L-DOPA to dopamine, and increase dopamine production and storage.

The researchers assessed the patients with the MoCA test and the DGI. MoCA scores were only moderately associated with DGI scores . But scores in the memory test of the goalkeeper game correlated with the DGI score . Patients who got more responses wrong in the memory phase had a higher gait impairment in complex situations.

Using Video Games For Early Detection Of Parkinsons Disease

August 3, 2020 By QPS

Parkinsons Disease is diagnosed based on classical motor symptoms, including bradykinesia , muscular rigidity, resting tremors and postural instability. In the prodromal phase , however, the signs and symptoms shown by patients are often not severe enough for a definitive diagnosis. If physicians can diagnose patients while they are still in the prodromal phase, treatment can be started before the disease begins to significantly affect daily activities.

Gait impairment, brought on by slight motor and cognitive decline, is typically present in the prodromal phase. This symptom is especially pronounced under challenging conditions, such as avoiding or climbing over obstacles or encountering unexpected objects. These challenges require greater interplay between cognitive and motor processes, causing PD patients responses in these complex conditions to be more noticeable than when they are walking without obstacles.

A study by a group of Brazilian researchers found that a video game may present a novel tool for early detection of gait impairment in people with Parkinsons Disease . The study, Goalkeeper Game: A New Assessment Tool for Prediction of Gait Performance Under Complex Condition in People With Parkinsons Disease, showed that a video game could be used to detect gait impairment earlier than existing tests, thus helping people with PD receive treatment sooner.

Play A Game Of Mini Golf

Your loved one may not be able to walk as far as he or she used to due to fatigue and muscle weakness in the legs. However, your parent can still enjoy a fun sport by playing mini golf. This pastime helps your loved one maintain hand-eye coordination and get a healthy amount of walking while completing the course.

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Chess And Other Strategy Games

Classic strategy games, such as chess and checkers, help seniors continue to strengthen their reasoning skills. Your loved one will also need to use his or her memory to recall the rules of the game and any strategies he or she used successfully in the past. Seniors may also need to move their arms across the midlines of their bodies when they move the pieces, which further strengthens communication between the two sides of the brain.

A professional caregiver can be a wonderful game-playing partner for a senior with Parkinsons. If your elderly loved one is living with a serious medical condition and needs help managing the tasks of daily living, reach out to Home Care Assistance, ahomecare servicesagencyyou can trust. Our caregivers are available 24/7, there are no hidden fees in our contracts, and we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all of our in-home care services.

Eating Drinking And Parkinson’s Disease

Puzzles for Parkinson
  • Don’t rush your meals. Allow the extra time you need to finish your meal. Rest your elbows on the table to provide more motion at your wrist and hand.
  • Sit with your knees and hips bent at a 90-degree angle in a straight-back chair.
  • Use utensils with built-up, lightweight handles, or use a “spork” — a spoon and fork in one. Use a rocker knife for cutting food.
  • Use a non-skid mat to stabilize objects on the table.
  • Use a plate guard or plate with a raised lip to prevent food from spilling.
  • Use a long straw with a non-spill cup or use a plastic mug with a large handle.

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Bathing With Parkinson’s Disease

  • Use a shower chair if necessary.
  • Use a hand-held hose for showering and bathing.
  • Use a long-handled sponge or scrubbing brush.
  • Use soap-on-a-rope, bath mitts, or sponges with soap inside or a soft soap applicator instead of bar soap.
  • Use lukewarm water, as very hot water can cause fatigue.
  • Sew straps on towels to make them easier to hold while drying.
  • Place a non-skid rug on the floor outside the tub to dry your feet so you don’t slip.
  • Put a towel on the back of your chair and rub your back against it to dry. Or, use a terry cloth robe instead of a towel to dry off.

Nintendo Wii May Enhance Parkinson’s Treatment

Date:
The Nintendo Wii may help treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including depression, a researcher says.

The Nintendo Wii may help treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including depression, a Medical College of Georgia researcher says.

Parkinsons disease is a degenerative disease that impairs motor skills. Dr. Herz theorized that the popular computer game console, which simulates various sports and activities, could improve coordination, reflexes and other movement-related skills, but he found additional benefits as well.

“The Wii allows patients to work in a virtual environment that’s safe, fun and motivational,” says Dr. Ben Herz, program director and assistant professor in the School of Allied Health Sciences Department of Occupational Therapy. “The games require visual perception, eye-hand coordination, figure-ground relationships and sequenced movement, so it’s a huge treatment tool from an occupational therapy perspective.”

In an eight-week pilot study, 20 Parkinsons patients spent an hour playing the Wii three times a week for four weeks. The patients, all in a stage of the disease in which both body sides are affected but with no significant gait disturbance yet, played two games each of tennis and bowling and one game of boxinggames entailing exercise, bilateral movement, balance and fast pace.

An estimated 45 percent of Parkinsons patients are reported to suffer from depression, though Dr. Herz suspects the actual figure is much higher.

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Enjoy A Game Of Scrabble

Board games are often designed to stimulate the mind, and Scrabble is especially good for seniors with Parkinsons disease. Some seniors with Parkinsons face difficulty with communication, and your loved one may experience memory lapses that make it challenging to remember words. Your loved one will use vocabulary skills to come up with words using the tiles in his or her tray, which may help with retaining verbal abilities.

Many seniors in the early stages of Parkinsons are able to live on their own, but they may need a bit of help with the everyday tasks of life, such as exercising and preparing nutritious meals. Aging adults who require assistance with the tasks of daily living can benefit from reliable senior home care. Chandler, AZ, families trust Home Care Assistance to provide the high-quality care their elderly loved ones need and deserve. Our caregivers are trained to help seniors prevent and manage serious illnesses and encourage them to make healthier decisions as they age.

Does Playing Video Games Benefit People With Parkinsons

Play a game and fight Parkinson’s

Beth Holloway held a Wii bowling tournament in her St. Johns, Newfoundland home, recently, with six friends who, like Beth, have Parkinsons disease. She also performs a tightrope walk, regularly, using her Wii Fit balance board. She says, I cant say these video games help my balance because I just dont know. But I like the fun of it. Anything that gets a person moving, as far as Im concerned, is a good thing.

She is possibly on the right track, judging from current research into the usefulness of Wii games in helping people with Parkinsons.

Canadian research

Measurement of walking speed over 10 metres. 16% improvement
Force platform Stand on a platform device while a computer measures the movement of the persons centre of gravity. no statistically significant improvement

Esculier notes, An overall 55% improvement in the one-leg stance is great because, in one phase of walking, you have to stand on one leg so, if you can improve that, you have more stability. The 45% change on the sit-to-stand test indicates improvements to both balance and leg strength.

Interestingly, when participants rated their own performance, they did not think their balance had improved, although the objective tests showed that it had. Esculier suggests the subjects under-estimation could be a good thing because it could guard against taking unnecessary risks and increasing the likelihood of falls. Participants did report that they were walking a bit more easily than they did before.

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Computer Games Help People With Parkinson’s Disease

Playing computer-based physical therapy games can help people with Parkinsons disease improve their gait and balance, according to a new pilot study led by the UCSF School of Nursing and Red Hill Studios, a California gaming software developer.

More than half the subjects in the three-month research project showed small improvements in walking speed, balance and stride length.

UCSF and Red Hill were the first research team in the United States to receive federal funding in the burgeoning field of low-cost computerized physical therapy games. Unlike off-the-shelf computer games, these specialized games encourage scientifically tested specific physical movements to help people with functional impairments and diseases.

Teams at Red Hill and UCSF collaborated to produce nine “clinically inspired” games that were designed to improve coordination in people with Parkinson’s disease, a chronic, progressive neuromuscular disease characterized by shaking, slowness of movement, limb and trunk rigidity. The clinical team members at UCSF focused on specific body movements and gestures that their previous research had shown to be beneficial for staving off the physical declines of Parkinson’s.

The Red Hill team then designed physical games, similar to Wii and Kinect games, in which subjects win points by moving their bodies in certain ways. Each game has multiple difficulty levels so that the clinical team could customize the therapeutic games for each subject’s particular abilities.

Fantastic Brain Games For Aging Adults Who Have Parkinsons

By Ted Holmgren 9 am on August 12, 2019

Playing brain games is a great way to keep seniors busy throughout the day, and it offers particular benefits for aging adults with Parkinsons disease. Over time, Parkinsons disease causes changes in the brain that affect the ability to move easily and think clearly. Doing activities that stimulate neural communication within the brain may slow down the pace and severity of these changes. These five brain games are perfect for preserving your senior loved ones abilities and having fun at the same time.

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James Thomas Leads A Team At Vcus Motor Control Lab Who Are Developing Immersive Games To Help Those With Trunk Control Impairments Get Moving

9/9/2021 12:00:00 AM

Youd call them games. James S. Thomas, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Virginia Commonwealth University, and his team call them interventions for patients with movement disorders.

What began as a clinical trial at VCU to learn whether virtual reality games could relieve lower back pain has evolved to include their use as therapy for those with Parkinsons disease.

Thomas leads a team of multidisciplinary researchers at VCUs Motor Control Lab in the College of Health Professions who are developing immersive VR games to help those with trunk control impairments caused by orthopedic or neurological conditions get moving.

You feel like youre playing a game, but what’s happening behind the scenes is that we’ve developed algorithms to tailor the game experience to the individual and encourage you to move with better trunk control, Thomas recently told a small group of Parkinsons patients who gathered in a suburban park to see the labs technology in action.

We’re trying to get you to move your body in a way that will help you maintain your quality of life, and hopefully get you moving better, so that you can enjoy more of life.

The first was a simple fishing game that lets users scoop fish that leap out of water and swat at an attacking shark every few seconds. The other, a dodgeball game, shoots red balls at an avatar of the user, who has to punch the balls from the air.

Easing Cramps Spasms Or Tremors Due To Parkinson’s

Parkinson
  • Massage your legs nightly to relieve leg cramps.
  • Take warm baths and use heating pads to help relieve muscle spasms and ease cramps.
  • Use mineral ice to relax sore joints and muscles.
  • Squeeze a small rubber ball to reduce hand tremors.
  • At first indication of a tremor, if possible, try lying on the floor, face down, and relaxing your body for five to 10 minutes.

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Fantastic Activities For Seniors With Parkinsons

By Amanda Butas 9 am on August 26, 2019

Finding interesting things to do is difficult for many caregivers and their loved ones. While you need to provide activities that keep your senior loved one challenged, he or she may not be able to do some of the things he or she used to enjoy. These seven activities are exciting, interesting, and perfect for helping seniors with Parkinsons overcome their challenges.

Future Research In Virtual Reality For Parkinson’s

VR is still a relatively new technology. Few studies have been done, making generalizations to populations outside of the research circumstances difficult. Further research is needed to expand the evidence for the use of VR in people with Parkinson’s. Future research should aim to examine the effectiveness of VR interventions in different disease stages of Parkinson’s to determine the usefulness of VR-based interventions in the prevention of physical decline during the early stages of Parkinson’s, and during the progression of Parkinson’s in the middle to late stages. Additionally, it should also focus on providing evidence-based recommendations regarding the frequency, duration, and content of VR interventions for groups with Parkinson’s .

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Safety And Feasibility Of Gameplay

After the design phase, we sought to pilot test the game with a group of people with PD to assess its safety and feasibility, as well as obtain feedback about the gameplay. For the purposes of this article, we define safety as the ability to maintain postural control whilst playing the game, without slipping, tripping or falling. Feasibility was defined as the ability to play and improve gameplay performance, as well as the enjoyment and immersion in the gameplay.

Writing Tips For Parkinson’s Disease

Purdue University creating video game to help with Parkinson’s Disease
  • Use large print, instead of script writing. Try using weighted pens or pencils and wrap black electrical tape around the barrel for additional grip.
  • Use felt-tip markers and a large tablet on an easel.
  • If you have difficulty using writing utensils, try typing notes or letters on a computer or typewriter.

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Scientific Rationale And Advantages For Using Virtual Reality

  • Enhance motivation/repetition: to learn a motor skill, patients require sufficient motivation to drive their repetitive practice of a skull. VR may be a novel technology to most people, and with the the variations in environment and task possible with simulated virtual environments, patients are less likely to experience boredom. Patients can tolerate the extensive practice period by the variety provided by video games.
  • Provide precise feedback: there is extensive evidence that the proprioceptive and exteroceptive feedback can induce profound cortical and subcortical changes associated with motor performance. With the use of VR, the feedback is augmented through different settings. This can tailor and further enhance the physiological changes in patients with Parkinson’s.
  • Transferability: one may be concerned that the motor skills learned from VR may not translate to real-world environments. However, there is a fair amount of evidence suggesting that patients have the ability to not only learn motor skills, but also translate them to the real world.
  • On Exploring Design Elements In Assistive Serious Games For Parkinson’s Disease Patients: I

    S. B. Dias J. A. Diniz E. Konstantinidis T. Savvidis P. Bamidis H. Jaeger M. Stadtschnitzer L. Klingelhoefer D. Trivedi S. Bostantzopoulou V. Charisis S. Hadjidimitriou D. Iakovakis L. J. Hadjileontiadis

    Serious Games design couples learning design with game logic. Moreover, it can result in SGs with beneficial effects in sustaining and/or improving the functionality in older adults. In this vein, the design elements in assistive SGs for Parkinsons Disease patients are explored here. The Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted and its main game-design parameters are combined in a test case of Exergames design, drawn from the i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite . Data from a GBL-related Web-survey, completed by 104 participants, were subjected to linear regression analysis, so to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the Exergames beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of the proposed analysis can assist game designers to focus on the use of significant parameters during the designing process of Exergames for PD patients and maximize the positive effect of the SGs in their quality of everyday living.

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    Ideal Brain Games For An Aging Loved One With Parkinsons

    By Pete Lane 9 am on November 18, 2019

    The changes that occur with Parkinsons disease arent always physical. While your senior loved one may face difficulty with things such as muscle tremors, you should also know the disease affects the way he or she thinks. Foggy thinking, memory loss, and general confusion are all common cognitive symptoms that can occur with Parkinsons. These six brain games are fun for you to enjoy together, and they can help your loved one retain cognitive functioning.

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