ABSTRACT
Few rehabilitation programs and techniques have shown promise in standardizing long term amputee rehabilitation. Providing real-time, objective feedback will help to continuously improve the quality of lite of amputee individuals. Existing systems and techniques are subjective and vary significantly from location to location and currently there is no established long term rehabilitation plan for amputees. The objective of this research was to determine the impact of a virtual reality rehabilitation (VRR) training program. This program provided real-time feedback and quantitative metrics to the amputee user. The focus of this study involved a male, five years post amputation, who exhibited hip adduction and fatigued quickly when walking. The individual completed a baseline session and four training visits. Following intervention, the subject exhibited an increased walking speed and a more narrow base of support. The subject was also able to walk a longer distance during the 2-minute walk test and fatigued less quickly. The individual stated that he could stand and walk for longer periods of time following the training and felt that his activities of daily living were easier and his overall
quality of life had improved. VRR, incorporating real-time feedback and objective performance mctrics, appears to be very promising. Five additional amputee patients completed VRR training and all reported positive outcomes. To our knowledge, this was the first study documenting a successful VRR gait-based strategy in patients with lower limb amputations.
