From the get-go, Nintendo's latest console was seen as a dream come true for folks who'd love to lose a few pounds, yet would rather log a few hours on the couch rather than the track. Shortly after the Wii Fit's launch, we're already seeing another wave of dedicated users reporting weight loss, and the trend is even bleeding into the medical field. According to Sue Stanley-Green, a professor of athletic training at Florida Southern College, the Wii Fit and other fitness-related games have "great potential for core strengthening and rehabilitation and may boost compliance with rehabilitation exercises." She also noted that these games were "being used more and more in nursing homes," and particularly with youngsters, titles such as Wii Fit are the only ones that stand a chance at getting them active. We can't decide if that's a positive thing or just downright depressing.

[Thanks, Juergen]

Read - Wii Fit in rehab
Read - Wii Fit weight loss

Although we assumed that spending time with a Wii was easily the best way to rehabilitate, Entertainment Robotics' Therapy Tiles are looking like a close second. Designed to help patients get motivated, moving about and regaining their strength / motor skills, this game consists of an electronic, interactive surface along with "control programs for the specific therapeutic treatment." Currently, the tiles are being used at the Sygehus Fyn Svendborg hospital in Denmark for rehabilitation of cardiac patients, but it sounds as if anyone interested can phone up the sales team for a quote of their own. Check out the read link for a plethora of photos along with a video demonstration.

[Via Wired]

We've seen a variety of methods used to help stroke patients regain motion and motor functions, but we can't think of anything more exciting than playing video games as a critical part of your rehabilitation. Turns out, a number of physical therapists around the country are actually allowing patients to relearn balance and movement skills by playing the Wii, which as you know, it already quite the hit with the geriatric set. Furthermore, injured soldiers in Landstuhl, Germany are also "regaining their strength by playing virtual games on the Wii," and there's even suggestions out to conduct a research study that looks at the effectiveness of using Nintendo's latest console as a rehab tool. Hit the read link for the video report.

[Thanks, Pat D.]

You know that the future's here when technology arrives that allows vehicles to be controlled with nothing but a thought. Ambient, in partnership with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, has developed a wheelchair that can be instructed to move when the driver thinks about certain words. The key component is a larynx control system called the Audeo, developed by the founders of Ambient, Michael Callahan and Thomas Coleman. The New Scientist has a video demonstration of the unit, which is surprisingly eerie without the usual subtle twitch of a hand that accompanies regular motorized wheelchairs. The next stage in the project -- externally recognizing individual words imagined in the brain -- is apparently a while off: still, we think a thought controlled anything at this stage in the game is a major feat.

If you ever question whether or not technology is enriching our lives or contributing to the greater good, you need only glance in the direction of modern medicine to get your answer. Take Peng Shulin, a man from China who had the lower half of his body severed in a tragic accident -- for years he has been bedridden, but recently doctors have engineered an ingenious device that is allowing him to walk again. While there isn't a lot of information about the technology, it appears that Mr. Shulin's body is placed into an egg cup-like casing which is connected to two "bionic legs", and through the use of a downsized walking frame he is able to gain locomotion and move freely. Doctors report that Peng is -- unsurprisingly -- "delighted" with the device.

[Via Medgadget]

While we've got robotic assistants that give aid to our ankles, arms, upper bodies, muscles, and legs (just to name a few), researchers at the University of California, Irvine are offering up yet another solution to assist stroke victims regain functionality in their hands. Sure, the Cyberhand and modified P5 glove have already been down this road before, but UCI's Hand-Wrist Assisting Robotic Device (cleverly-dubbed HOWARD) is a purely medical device that was constructed to "help people regain strength and normal use of affected hands long after a stroke." Considering that the first three months after a stroke are when the most "spontaneous improvement" occurs, the device is set into a lineup of scheduled therapy sessions which help victims regain motion, feeling, and grasping abilities of their hands. Additionally, HOWARD requires patients to move at least one-tenth of an inch before the assisting kicks in, which purportedly helps them "remember the feeling" of making motions on their own. Currently, 13 participants have been through HOWARD therapy, and all of them saw 10 to 20-percent improvements in various grasping tests, and while we've no idea when these contraptions will sneak into hospital wards, the team is already hard at work developing a smaller sibling with a bit more software options than the existing rendition.

[Via Slashdot]