The Wii being used for physical rehabilitation is kind of an old idea, but I think this is the first time we’ve heard of Guitar Hero being used to help amputees get used to their new arms limbs.
Rehabilitation specialists have taken to Nintendo’s Wii game console as a way to help motivate patients during physical therapy and rehabilitation. The latest addition to the Wii-hab phenomenon is perhaps its coolest—Air Guitar Hero. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have made the popular Guitar Hero game into a tool for amputees who are being fitted with the next generation of artificial arms. With a few electrodes and some very powerful algorithms, amputees can hit all the notes of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” using only the electrical signals from their residual muscles.
While it’s always cool to hear about video games helping people in interesting ways like this one, I’m more impressed with the fact that a prosthetic arm can play Guitar Hero at all. That’s amazing. To paraphrase Three Panel Soul, it is unquestionably the future and you would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway.
