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Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?

Balance is the foundation upon which all other motor skills are built. Indeed, many neurological diseases and injuries often present clinically with deficits in balance control. With recent advances in virtual reality (VR) hardware bringing low-cost headsets into the mainstream market, the question...

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Autores principales: Craig, Cathy M., Stafford, James, Egorova, Anastasiia, McCabe, Carla, Matthews, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35741219
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12061409
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author Craig, Cathy M.
Stafford, James
Egorova, Anastasiia
McCabe, Carla
Matthews, Mark
author_facet Craig, Cathy M.
Stafford, James
Egorova, Anastasiia
McCabe, Carla
Matthews, Mark
author_sort Craig, Cathy M.
collection PubMed
description Balance is the foundation upon which all other motor skills are built. Indeed, many neurological diseases and injuries often present clinically with deficits in balance control. With recent advances in virtual reality (VR) hardware bringing low-cost headsets into the mainstream market, the question remains as to whether this technology could be used in a clinical context to assess balance. We compared the head tracking performance of a low-cost VR headset (Oculus Quest) with a gold standard motion tracking system (Qualisys). We then compared the recorded head sway with the center of pressure (COP) measures collected from a force platform in different stances and different visual field manipulations. Firstly, our analysis showed that there was an excellent correspondence between the two different head movement signals (ICCs > 0.99) with minimal differences in terms of accuracy (<5 mm error). Secondly, we found that head sway mapped onto COP measures more strongly when the participant adopted a Tandem stance during balance assessment. Finally, using the power of virtual reality to manipulate the visual input to the brain, we showed how the Oculus Quest can reliably detect changes in postural control as a result of different types of visual field manipulations. Given the high levels of accuracy of the motion tracking of the Oculus Quest headset, along with the strong relationship with the COP and ability to manipulate the visual field, the Oculus Quest makes an exciting alternative to traditional lab-based balance assessments.
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spelling pubmed-92219132022-06-24 Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability? Craig, Cathy M. Stafford, James Egorova, Anastasiia McCabe, Carla Matthews, Mark Diagnostics (Basel) Article Balance is the foundation upon which all other motor skills are built. Indeed, many neurological diseases and injuries often present clinically with deficits in balance control. With recent advances in virtual reality (VR) hardware bringing low-cost headsets into the mainstream market, the question remains as to whether this technology could be used in a clinical context to assess balance. We compared the head tracking performance of a low-cost VR headset (Oculus Quest) with a gold standard motion tracking system (Qualisys). We then compared the recorded head sway with the center of pressure (COP) measures collected from a force platform in different stances and different visual field manipulations. Firstly, our analysis showed that there was an excellent correspondence between the two different head movement signals (ICCs > 0.99) with minimal differences in terms of accuracy (<5 mm error). Secondly, we found that head sway mapped onto COP measures more strongly when the participant adopted a Tandem stance during balance assessment. Finally, using the power of virtual reality to manipulate the visual input to the brain, we showed how the Oculus Quest can reliably detect changes in postural control as a result of different types of visual field manipulations. Given the high levels of accuracy of the motion tracking of the Oculus Quest headset, along with the strong relationship with the COP and ability to manipulate the visual field, the Oculus Quest makes an exciting alternative to traditional lab-based balance assessments. MDPI 2022-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9221913/ /pubmed/35741219 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12061409 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Craig, Cathy M.
Stafford, James
Egorova, Anastasiia
McCabe, Carla
Matthews, Mark
Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title_full Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title_fullStr Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title_full_unstemmed Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title_short Can We Use the Oculus Quest VR Headset and Controllers to Reliably Assess Balance Stability?
title_sort can we use the oculus quest vr headset and controllers to reliably assess balance stability?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35741219
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12061409
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