VestAid Game Suite

The VestAid game suite is for patients in need of vestibular rehabilitation therapy. Service members who have been exposed to blastshave frequent complaints of vertigo, gaze instability, motion intolerance, and other symptoms consistent with vestibular pathology. Gaze stabilization and habituation exercises are essential to vestibular rehabilitation and are delivered both as in-clinic therapy and aspart of a home-exercise program. Gaze stabilization exercises are usually done with the aid of marks on a wall or handheld cards.Therapists often complain that patients lack motivation to do exercises at home and that when they do them, they have difficulties performing the exercises properly and complying to the prescribed regimen. The home exercises can be boring and may induce symptoms. VestAid supports vestibular rehabilitation therapy through the use of gamification strategies to improve patient motivation and compliance. The games developed for VestAid make the therapy fun, exciting, and add challenging elements for encouragement.Where possible, the traditional therapies are integrated stealthily. The suite provides physical therapists with objective measures of performance, adherence, and symptom history.

The suite contains Rhythmic Vision, a VR rhythm game in which players synchronize eye and head motions with visual representations of song notes. This game provides training for corrective saccadic eye motion.

Also in the suite is VestibulArrR!, a tower defense game in which players control a set of cannons to defend a town against incoming pirate ships. The cannons are loaded, aimed, and fired using eye and head movements. This game provides saccade eye motion,smooth pursuit, and dual/multi-tasking training.

Finally, Fast Focus, a car racing game, is integrated with patient therapy, not only does it provide encouragement and rewards, it also provides therapeutic benefits of habituating patients to visual stimuli that can induce symptoms.