Virtual Reality in the Rehabilitation of patients. State of the art, research areas and future prospects

Guillermo Palacios, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract: In the past decades, there has been a sharp increase in the application of virtual reality (VR) treatments to the rehabilitation of a range of disorders resulting from lesions of the nervous system, both in motor and cognitive domains. VR can provide functional, rich stimuli (cues) and motivating context (feedback), providing virtual environments (VE) easily changeable, allowing the design of individualized therapies that are adapted to patient needs. In this talk, the basic principles of this technology will be presented together with the main advantages of VR-based applications for both motor rehabilitation and cognitive rehabilitation. We will talk about the main findings achieved in the last decades, as well as future research trends.