Connecting back to real life through virtual reality

Guttmann Institute works with patients who have suffered several kinds of accident that resulted in spinal cord injuries. They also have a long record of working with  people who suffer form hereditary motor or cognitive abilities. sometimes they lose basic abilities such as disabilities. These injuries affect not just the mobility of a< person, but also his or her speech or coordination. However, they have not lost all chances. Precisely, Guttman Institute's wide experience in creating and managing recovering programmmes shows that there are chances and hope of recovery.
 
However, the treatment of theseproblems is not an easy job. Therapists from Guttman used to resort to exercicese involving two-dimensional graphics   to help patients in their recovery process. This is to say, they worked the recovery of mental abilities and mobility with the help of two dimensional images, puzzles,...etc. Following this methodology they were, not just walking half of the way between practise and reality; sometimes patients could bew be quite good with two dimensional situations; however that doesn't mean that they would be able to cope properly in a three dimensional day to day reality. Guttman experts also used an expensive methodology that depended critically on the availability of a neuropsychologist for each patient and the patient's will to improve,  by training alone at home.

GIE group and Marc Freixes' thesis propose a new technique that will involve a double improvement. On one hand, they are working on the development of two and three dimnesional virtual tools. Although 2D models already exist, GIE researchers are improving them by turning them into reprogrammable tools. The fact that these programs can be manipulated by a therapist, or even by the machine itself an take into account each individual patient's mistakes, makes a little more independent the therapy from the therapist.

On top of that, the group directed by Daniela Tost is also generating thre dimensional models. We live in a three dimensional world where our daily life tasks requiere the use of our 3D abilities. If a patient is learning to solve  problems in two dimensions and he or she is requiere to jump from there to a real three real dimensions situtaiont (cooking an egg, for example), it may be too big a change, an insurmountable difficulty. On the contrary, by going  step by step, the patient first of all learns how to solve a 2D puzzle, than it can go further and practicse in a 3D virtual atmosphere with eggs, a frying pan, olive oil...etc. Then the next and final jump into solving these same o similar problems in a real 3D world is a less demanding task and there are more probabilities of success.

On the other hand GIE researchers are planning to present this project using a  format that is free from any specific location. Any patient will be able to connect himself to a server where the therapist, or the machine, has prepared an exercise programme. He will go through these exercises calmly and relaxed whenever he chooses. The project will be centralised in the Guttmann Institute, but patients will be able to used it from any location: Reus, Lleida, Barcelona... etc .