Utopic Studios, a firm linked to podcast, has been developed in collaboration with the research group ImagoBrain of the Universitat Jaume I, which has as main researchers the Dr. Cristina Forn and Dr. Carla Sanchis, Together with the Multiple Sclerosis Association of Castellón, an virtual reality program aimed at simultaneously rehabilitating the cognitive and motor functions of people with multiple sclerosis.
The study is part of the project Neurorehabilitation and functional recovery in multiple sclerosis (MS): Evaluation of two therapeutic strategies using functional magnetic resonance imaging, financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities to measure its effectiveness and its objective is to promote a real improvement in the physical and cognitive state of patients and increase, in the short and long term, their quality of life.
The project emerged in 2017 at the request of the Multiple Sclerosis Association of Castellón, which was involved from the beginning in its development, contributing the experience of its staff and the detection of needs in relation to associated patients. For it, Utopic Studios I use the tool Ikinsu to carry out, in a controlled manner, various rehabilitation and therapy exercises, through the use of immersive virtual reality.
In Spain around 1.800 people are diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis each yearCurrently there are about 47.000 people affected by this disease. It is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system and it is one of the most common neurological diseases among the population between 20 and 40 years old. Furthermore, it has no cure and efforts are focused on exploring innovative ways that improve the quality of life of patients and slow their evolution, this being the need that is resolved through the development of a tool to apply intense cognitive stimulation therapy.
IKIGAI NEUROLAB
Immersive virtual reality allows you to recreate a varied, entertaining and stimulating environment that generates a positive mood in the patient that considerably improves brain and cognitive performance, through new technologies it is possible to systematically control the presentation of stimuli, the establishment of parameters, distractors and other variables and the measurement of results.
Notably Immersive virtual reality can treat phobias by reproducing real, safe environments, to achieve exposure of patients to the cause of the problem without any risk to them and under the absolute control of the professional. For its part, in the field of physical rehabilitation, virtual reality provides the reproduction of visually stimulating and attractive environments, with absolutely immersive dynamic activities, with which the necessary motivation is obtained to achieve recovery of functional capacity in general.
Exercises Ikinsu, are designed as dual task with the aim of stimulating both the aerobic exercise part, hand-eye coordination, balance and joint range along with cognitive variables, such as focused attention, sustained attention and information processing speed. Another objective of Ikigai Neurolab is to stimulate simple cognitive domains (verbal fixation memory, working memory, attention, executive functions, etc.) on virtually simulated daily life tasks, which leads us to achieve cognitive rehabilitation supported by tasks that can be extrapolated to real life.
