ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the utilization of virtual reality (VR) for evaluating the effects of fear of falling on balance and gait function. Through the integration of VR and brain-computer interface technologies, potential breakthroughs in both physical and psychological recovery may be feasible through greater access to personalized medical treatment. Understanding responses to height variations is also significant in designing remedial treatments for elderly and patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. The chapter discusses the computational infrastructure for the various reviewed experiments. The VR walking experiment is a test setup dynamically modifying the virtual world using the subject’s estimated neural responses to visual stimuli. The VR height control experiment is a VR-based test setup for studying subject’s anxiety state, estimated via the recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, to randomized height changes and mechanical perturbations while they stand. The chapter describes the EEG and heartbeat data analysis pipelines to evaluate the fluctuations in anxiety levels.
