Effects of Adding Force Control to a VR Game on Brain Activation

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Healthy Aging
• Interventions: Device: Virtual reality headset

• Registration Number: NCT06412887
• Lead Sponsor: National Cheng-Kung University Hospital

Brief Summary

One of the major contributor for the lower quality of living in the aged population, is the reduction in hand function. To mitigate this, several virtual-reality based hand rehabilitation/training systems have been developed.

However, most of these systems are solely controlled by hand gestures, and do not incorporate the force between the fingertips. Which is not the case for grabbing things in real life. With that in mind, the researchers assumed that a virtual-reality based hand rehabilitation/training system that incorporates force control into its input can be more beneficial in terms of recovering one's hand function.

To test out this claim, subjects were recruited and tasked to play a game using both input systems (wfc and wofc), while their brain activity while using both input system was simultaneously recorded using functional near infrared spectroscopy and compared

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2023-07-10
• Primary Completion: 2023-08-11
• Study Completion: 2023-08-11
• Study First Submitted: 2024-04-25
• Status Verified: 2024-05
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-05-08
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-05-08
• Study First Posted: 2024-05-14
• Last Update Posted: 2024-05-14

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 24

Inclusion Criteria

• With normal vision or wearing prescription glass that can fit inside the Meta Quest 2 VR headset.
• Able to understand English, Chinese, or Taiwanese language.

Exclusion Criteria

• Experiencing motion sickness after prolonged usage of VR headsets
• Having chronic diseases or injuries that can prevent them from participating in the experiment such as: hand injuries, missing fingers, blindness, deafness, hearing impairments, etc.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: CROSSOVER

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
with force control (wfc)	Virtual reality headset	Users play the game using the conventional virtual reality input system with force control
without force control (wofc)	Virtual reality headset	Users play the game using the conventional virtual reality input system

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO)	1 hour	The Oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) was measured while the participants play the game under both conditions
Game performance1 (Amount of grasp initiated)	1 hour	This unitless metric counts the number of times the subject initiates a grasp while playing the game, a higher amount of grasp initiated signifies worst performance
Game performance2 (Memory task accuracy)	1 hour	This percentage is calculated by dividing the amount of correct response by the total amount of response. A larger perrcentage represents better performance

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Maximum voluntary pinch force	5 minutes	The maximum voluntary pinch force of each particapant were measured using the Jamar pinch dynamometer at the beginning of the experiment
Recall	5 minutes	The ability to recall information of each particapant was measured using the forward digit span test at the beginning of the experiment
Manual dexterity	5 minutes	The manual dexterity of each participant was measured using the Purdue Pegboard Test at the beginning of the experiment

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

National Cheng Kung University; 🇨🇳 Tainan, Taiwan