PediaCORE

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common motor disability in the United States, with over 500,000 currently reported cases and 10,000 new diagnoses every year. Children with CP suffer neurological detriment which impairs muscle control, resulting in poor trunk stability. Trunk stabilityis an important prerequisite to many everyday functions, including sitting, standing, and walking, so children with CP experience a significantly reduced quality of life due to their condition. The standard of care for these patients is in-clinic physical therapy (PT), during which a therapist tailors the treatment to the child, adapting the exercises as the child progresses. However, there are several difficulties inherent to providing PT for young children with CP. The exercises mandated by PT often cause discomfort and fatigue. As a result, young children often do not cooperate with therapy. There is a need for a solution that can improve comfort and enjoyment to better motivate therapy. Virtual reality (VR) technology is an exciting and rapidly growing area of PT research. VR offers an entertaining and immersive experience that mitigates the discomfort caused by PT. Our solution mimics the aspects of VR that make it successful in PT while remaining safe for children to use. Our solution is a unique combination of novel software and hardware. We utilize a large, immersive, and interactive display along with highly customizable software to create an engaging and immersive therapy environment. Our software includes a variety of games that imitate specific PT exercises, each of which can be customized to appeal to children of varying interests and ages.