York program helps athletes recover through video games

Vera Abdel Malek
Contributor
Sometimes you just need to play through the injury – at least, that’s idea with one of York’s new rehabilitation studies.
York University’s Sports Injury Clinic is using Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect for rehabilitation and research.
“The main thing we’re using it for is concussions,” said Cindy Hughes, head athletic therapist and manager of the Sports Injury Clinic.
The Kinect is only being used for long-term concussions, especially when the athletes are returning to play.
“It’s really interesting because they have to think and act and react and move,” she said. “So it’s combining things.”
All York varsity athletes undergo baseline testing before they begin. For the neurocognitive component athletes undergo the Impact test, and for the balance component athletes undergo the BESS test. This provides the clinic with an idea of what the athletes are normally like, so in the case of concussions they are identified properly. While there are tests for separate functions, there are no current tests that combine everything. The athletes are also retested against their baseline results to determine if they can return to play.
Returning to play is a progression, but it’s very important that it’s done right, says Hughes.
“It’s such a significant issue,” she said. “If an athlete returns back to their sport too soon, the risks to them if the symptoms haven’t resolved could potentially lead to permanent brain damage and even death.”
“This might help retrain their brain to start reacting and to be thinking and moving at the same time.”
Dr. Lauren Sergio, a professor in York University’s school of kinesiology and health science, is conducting her own research into how the brain controls action when you have to think and act at the same time.
“Since it forces you to move and react in a fairly realistic way, my early impression is that it has great potentially as a rehab tool,” she said.
Dr. Sergio’s work with concussions and cognitive motor integration has been promising so far.
“Concussed athletes are having more difficulty planning movements when they’re having to think at the same time,” she said. “The effects are subtle but they’re in our pilot data.”
Dr. Sergio is working in conjunction with Hughes to design a study that can use the Kinect to look at the subtle long-term effects of concussion, but there are some potential problems.
“An issue would be that you can’t use this equipment early on before concussion symptoms are gone because you don’t want to hurt your athlete further,” Sergio said.
To combat this, they will only look at cognitive motor integration using the Kinect after athletes are cleared to play, she explained.
“We are interested in the effects of concussion long term and re-injury potential,” she said.
Hughes sees another potential problem with using the Kinect as a rehabilitation tool. There are currently 500 to 600 varsity athletes, and they had to undergo a five-minute balance test with student athletic therapist and a 30-minute neurocognitive test online.
“If they’re going to come in here, how are we going to get them all tested?” she said. “It’s going to be tricky.”
With one television set and one Xbox Kinect, this would prove difficult. In the meantime, a number of patients have used the Kinect.
“We’ve had a positive response from the patients, they’ve really enjoyed it,” she said. “So far, I would say it’s been really successful. And it’s fun.”