Posted 6/05/2008

Research project will test whether video games can help
in recovery of stroke victims

With a straight face, exercise science researcher Dr. Stacy Fritz is calling for volunteers to come play video games in her lab at USC's Arnold School of Public Health.

She's offering some of the newest technology available – the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 2 Eye Toy.

The proposal may sound like a siren call for couch potatoes, but Fritz is only interested in gamers with special qualifications – such as lingering balance and mobility problems from a stroke. And they don't need to have any experience with video games.

Stacy Fritz

The game play offer is part of a research study supported by a $100,000 grant from the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Distilled to its essence, the game playing will test whether off-the-shelf interactive games can help people recover their motor skills following a stroke.

"The use of video games is a little controversial so it's important to say up front that what we're doing is not designed to replace conventional therapy. We're testing to see if this is one modality that may help," said Fritz, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science.

Home therapy can be a boring chore for many stroke victims, but continued recovery efforts are important, said Fritz. More than half of post-stroke victims have reduced mobility, balance, and increased risk of falling.

Fritz's study is one of 12 across the country supported by more than $2 million in Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants over the next two years. The efforts, all involving video games, range from promoting healthy nutrition and lifestyles in adolescents to teaching recovering alcoholics how stay sober.

"The study will identify new, interactive strategies to use in the design of future health games and technologies," said Dr. Debra Lieberman, Health Games Research director and a communication researcher at the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Previous studies and clinical trials have shown that well-designed interactive games can significantly improve players' health-related knowledge, skills, behaviors, and outcomes. The 12 new studies will give us deeper insights into how and why certain game designs are compelling, fun and effective, and for which types of people," Lieberman said.

Fritz says studying stroke victims was an obvious choice for a study in South Carolina, which leads the nation in stroke-related deaths and disabilities.

She's seeking a group of 30 persons who are willing to work with the gaming systems for one hour per week for five weeks.

Anticipating that most of the volunteers will be older persons, Fritz promised that fears of technology should not be a deterrent. "We're going to be sure that everyone understands how the systems work," she said.

Assisting Fritz in the study will be two doctoral graduate students: Angela Merlo-Rains, DPT and Erin Rivers, DPT.

For more information on the study:

• Telephone the USC Blanchard Machinery Rehabilitation Laboratory at 777-2627
• Email RehabLab@gwm.sc.edu
• Visit the project's web site at http://www.sph.sc.edu/dpt/dpt-rehab/vehab.htm