Wii balance boards are proving effective in restoring balance to individuals who suffer from multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that exposes nerve fibers and often disrupts the ability to maintain steadiness while standing.
Designed as a hardware companion to Nintendo's Wii Fit software -- and compatible with both the Wii and Wii U -- the versatile Wii balance board serves as a platform for yoga and aerobics as well as a tracker of biometric data. Along with calculating a user's body mass index, the balance board can also track an individual's center of gravity and shifts in weight displacement.
Details on how the Wii balance board can help individuals suffering from MS are described in the study Multiple Sclerosis: Changes in Microarchitecture of White Matter Tracts after Training with a Video Game Balance Board and published in the journal Radiology.
A group of 27 individual battling MS took part in a 12-week program in which they trained on the Wii balance board and worked with visual cues. Luca Prosperini, M.D. and Ph.D. from Sapienza University in Rome, says the improvements encouraged by usage of the Wii balance board evidenced the brain's ability to adapt long after it's fully developed.
"The most important finding in this study is that a task-oriented and repetitive training aimed at managing a specific symptom is highly effective and induces brain plasticity," says Prosperini. "More specifically, the improvements promoted by the Wii balance board can reduce the risk of accidental falls in patients with MS, thereby reducing the risk of fall-related comorbidities like trauma and fractures."
After watching individuals rehab their MS with balancing apparatus that reminded him of something from the Atari era, a commercial for Nintendo's Wii balance board is said to have encouraged Prosperini to modernize the balance therapy.
The progress made during the balance board training wasn't long term and the improved balance started to wane after the participants stopped using the equipment regularly. But after a little training, individuals with MS should be able to safely train with the Wii balance board in their homes, states Prosperini.
"This finding should have an important impact on the rehabilitation process of patients, suggesting that they need ongoing exercises to maintain good performance in daily living activities," says Prosperini.
While the Wii balance board promises to the help people suffering from MS worry less about their ability to stand under their own power, smart watches and custom software from Intel and the Michael J. Fox Foundation are being developed to help individuals with Parkinson's disease passively track their symptoms, according to a recent TechTimes article. The custom smart watches provides an unprecedented amount of data to doctors and researchers while wearers focus on other elements of their lives.
