Could an Immersive Virtual Reality Training Improve Navigation Skills in Children with Cerebral Palsy? A Pilot Controlled Study

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) suffer deficits in their motor, sensory, and cognitive abilities, as well as in their visuospatial competences. In the last years, several authors have tried to correlate the visuospatial abilities with the navigational ones. Given their importance in everyday funct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical medicine 2022-10, Vol.11 (20), p.6146
Main Authors: Nossa, Roberta, Gagliardi, Chiara, Panzeri, Daniele, Diella, Eleonora, Maghini, Cristina, Genova, Chiara, Turconi, Anna Carla, Biffi, Emilia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Alzheimer's disease
Cerebral palsy
Clinical medicine
Cognitive ability
Executive function
Memory
Patients
Training
Traumatic brain injury
Virtual reality
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Summary:Children with cerebral palsy (CP) suffer deficits in their motor, sensory, and cognitive abilities, as well as in their visuospatial competences. In the last years, several authors have tried to correlate the visuospatial abilities with the navigational ones. Given their importance in everyday functions, navigation skills have been deeply studied using increasingly cutting-edge techniques such as virtual reality (VR). However, to our knowledge, there are no studies focused on training using immersive VR (IVR) in children with movement disorders. For this reason, we proposed an IVR training to 35 young participants with CP and conceived to improve their navigation skills in a "simil-real" environment while playing on a dynamic platform. A subgroup performed a part of the training which was specifically dedicated to the use of the allocentric strategy (i.e., looking for landmarks) to navigate the virtual environment. We then compared the children's navigation and spatial skills pre- and post-intervention. All the children improved their visual-spatial abilities; particularly, if the IVR activities specifically trained their ability to look for landmarks and use them to navigate. The results of this work highlight the potential of an IVR training program to increase the navigation abilities of patients with CPs.
ISSN:2077-0383
2077-0383
DOI:10.3390/jcm11206146