CycloVR

Immobilization and prolonged bed rest are causing deleterious consequences at the musculoskeletal, pulmonary, cardiac, endocrine and metabolic levels. Physical exercise is an effective way to maintain muscle strength and limit these adverse effects.

The University Hospitals of Geneva developed a “Cyclo” rehabilitation device that adapts to the patient’s physical abilities, irrespective of the nature of his/her pathology (neurological, orthopedic, etc.) and his/her conditions of hospitalization (bed, chair, wheelchair). Several scenarios are proposed according to the type of movement (circular, linear).

In this project, Artanim integrated a virtual reality (VR) module to the device in order to get patients moving actively or passively into an immersive VR world that would make them forget during the time of care the clinical context (or even forget the pain). For example, a patient could go pedaling on a river (as in the video above) or take a bike ride in the countryside by pedaling at his/her own speed from an hospital bed. The goal iss also to gamify the rehabilitation session in order to motivate patients to do physical exercises.