Virtual Reality Transforms Assessment of Patients With Upper Limb Movement Challenges

For more than 40 years, Shriners Children’s has been using motion analysis technology to provide data that helps inform care decisions for children with movement differences caused by sports injuries or musculoskeletal conditions. Now a team of clinicians and engineers is collaborating to combine that technology with virtual reality (VR) to help patients with upper limb differences who weren’t previously able to benefit from motion analysis.

Imagine: A child slips on a virtual reality visor and plays a game, trying to reach and grab objects. She’s having fun, and her physician is getting meaningful information about how her arm is functioning.

That’s the technology that Shiners Children’s clinicians and Georgia Institute of Technology engineers are jointly developing. The virtual reality system will be used to assess upper arm mobility in children with cerebral palsy or brachial plexus birth injury, which is an injury to nerves in the shoulder area and usually occurs during a difficult delivery.

“The importance of our virtual reality technology is that it has the potential to consistently and accurately measure a child’s abilities, but also that it’s a game and motivates kids who are using it for their rehab,” said lead investigator Ross Chafetz, Ph.D., corporate director for motion analysis centers at Shriners Children’s.

Play is typically incorporated into many therapies for children. By combining motion analysis, virtual reality technology and game techniques, the process of assessing a child’s mobility becomes easier and more fun for patients and their families. Results are more accurate and consistent. And it’s faster, too.

“Instead of a mundane task for rehabilitation purposes that kids may dread, a game is much more enticing and potentially something to look forward to,” said Leanne West, chief engineer of pediatric technologies at Georgia Tech.

“The fact that it can be performed more quickly with less hassle makes it even better for everyone,” West added.

A motion analysis center test, with its elaborate set-up, marker placement on the body, and computer processing of the data, can take up to four hours. By contrast, this new tool produces results in under an hour, and it can even be done at home. The advantage of virtual reality is that its measurements are more precise and objective compared to a physical therapist’s assessment, Dr. Chafetz said.

Physicians can use data obtained through the VR tool to inform their care and help them make decisions about each patient’s individual treatment plan, leading to better outcomes.

Shriners Children’s and Georgia Tech began collaborating on the VR project three years ago. The two organizations have been working together since 2019 on collaborative research projects such as exoskeletons, smart prosthetics, and data analytics, as well as work encompassing the fields of precision medicine and big data analysis and interpretation.

Investigators also on the VR team with Dr. Chafetz include Scott Kozin, M.D., chief of staff emeritus at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia and physician lead of the Shriners Children’s Medical Group; Seth Donahue, Ph.D., system MAC motion scientists at Shriners Children’s Lexington; and May D. Wang, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology; Tyler Richardson Ph.D., associate professor at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg; and Stephanie Russo, M.D., Ph.D., pediatric hand and peripheral nerve surgeon at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

About Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 46,000 students, representing 50 states and more than 150 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society. For more information, please visit gatech.edu.