POLAND-3D CHILD THERAPY 3D fun improves child therapy in Poland

Record ID: 174318

  • Title: POLAND-3D CHILD THERAPY 3D fun improves child therapy in Poland
  • Date: 17th November 2014
  • Summary: 3D ENVIRONMENT
  • Embargoed: 2nd December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABI6JEQ3EKOD8YFJVL7H9DZ4AH
  • Story Text: Polish scientists have designed a 3D application as a therapy tool for disabled and autistic children, placing them in an imagined world full of games and colourful challenges.
    Engineers from the Gliwice Polytechnic worked with doctors and therapists to create a virtual world for children inside a 3D cave.
    Researchers say the children, who are often difficult to engage with standard physiotherapy, become absorbed in games and manage to stay focused for longer periods of time.
    The system looks like a gamer's dream and is similar to one used to simulate combat exercises by soldiers.
    "A child entering our application activates certain motion sequences which allow the optical system to measure where the individual segments of its body are, and on this basis calculate the appropriate modules of the application so that they match the location of the objects with the reach of a palm or the position of the head of the person in our system," Silesian University Of Technology scientist, Piotr Wodarski, who works with the children on a daily basis, said.
    Environments that allow for therapeutic activities, such as moving colourful blocks around, are programmed into the system.
    Professor Marek Gzik, who up until a few years ago designed medical toys for rehabilitating children, said children with autism and Down's Syndrome quickly lose interest with standard rehabilitation techniques.
    "Getting through to these children sometimes poses a problem. Thanks to this technology children become more open and we are able to first diagnose their problems properly, in detail, objectively, measuring the mobility in their joints for instance, and secondly putting that into context with rehabilitation and seeing which methods of rehabilitation are most efficient. This technology, which is our greatest achievement, allows us to reach these children the best and, similarly, receive information from them that is impossible to achieve through traditional methods of rehabilitation, because children are reluctant to cooperate with the therapists. Here, they cooperate very willingly," Gzik said.
    Director of the School for Children with Disabilities and Autism, Beata Raczka, said initial trials with students proved successful.
    "This interactive technology, this 3D space, the space in which the child functions makes our work easier. We don't yet know today if we are able to achieve more because we only just begun, we are not occupied with it yet, but judging from the children's reactions, from their emotions, we see that children become involved completely, experience their successes, achieve success and that is the most important thing," Raczka said.
    Polish engineers intend to further modify the system, to adjust it to the children's various levels of development and their motion and mental abilities. They are also planning to adjust the programme to be used with virtual reality headsets, which would make it possible to use at home. Polish hospitals have expressed interest in the system.
    Professor Dawid Larysz, from the Neurosurgery Clinic of the Central Clinical Hospital in Katowice, who co-operated with the engineers during the creation of the application, said the technology opens new possibilities in many branches of medicine and can be used in the treatment of various neurological disorders.
    "Neuropsychological therapy or neurologopedic therapy and some more complex therapies of physiotherapy are still developing intensively. Often we need to engage various different senses simultaneously. These types of three-dimensional methods allow us to act exactly in this way," he said.
    The inventors of the system say they take pride in offering needy children who find human interaction difficult their own magical virtual world.

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