Wii balance board for rehabilitation

Review

Using the Wii Fit as a tool for balance assessment and neurorehabilitation: the first half decade of “Wii-search”

Goble, D. J., Cone, B. L. & Fling, B. W., Journal of Neuroeng Rehabil. 2014; 11:12

DOI: 10.1186/1743-0003-11-12

Link to full text article: www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/11/1/12

Objective: to review the Wii balance board controller (WBB) as a balance force platform measurement tool and as a neurorehabilitation intervention.

Process: WBB was compared with a scientific grade balance platform.

A literature search for “Wii Fit system or WBB for the assessment or training of balance ability” resulted in 11 papers that “trained balance in healthy adults” and 8 papers “that rehabilitated balance in clinical populations”; these were reviewed.

Outcomes: Custom applications have potential to provide low-cost ways to assess balance. Wii research using custom software is “an extremely promising area of exploration”. Research using Wii metrics for measuring balance is “far less convincing to date”. There is little correlation between Wii outcomes and clinical balance tests.

Wii is a motivating tool that typically generates improvements in balance. More robust research is required for the Wii Fit system as a balance intervention.