Ontario funds speech-therapy video game | Health | Life | London ...

SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. ? With the financial backing of the provincial government, an Ontario company is developing a video game can be used by speech therapists as a rehabilitation tool.

On behalf of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, David Orazietti, member of provincial parliament for Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., announced $713,200 for Algoma Games for Health (AGFH), an arm of the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre (SMIC), which is working on the game.

"Up to this point, we've pretty much used video games to entertain people," said Dwayne Hammond, the SMIC strategic advisor for computer games technology. "Now, we're starting to help people."

For the last two years, AGFH has been developing a program called EVoxative in co-operation with medical researchers at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, using video game features to help stroke victims recover their speech skills through an Internet portal that would see them being guided and assessed by the therapist.

The game could also be played as "homework? without someone at another computer.

SSMIC executive director Tom Vair said the developers are also thinking of applying it to children's speech therapy.

The advantages are at least threefold, Vair said.

First of all, from a patient's perspective, video games can offer an element of fun to the often tedious journey to rehabilitation.

"The platform provides a more engaging way for the health-care provider to provide speech language therapy," said Vair, calling it "a design challenge for the team to make the design intuitive and easy to use, so any senior can pick up the game."

What's more, patients will be able to track their progress through various scores EVoxative tracks and stores, and health-care providers will have a very black-and-white way of tracking progress and modifying the rehab program.

And lastly, anyone with access to a computer and broadband will have access to a health-care professional.

"This games project is not children's play ? it is serious," said Arthur Perlini, dean of Algoma University, home to the SSMIC. "What you have invested in today is quality of life.

"We've already been consulting with speech language therapists and they've been giving us suggestions and they're excited about the project."

Source: http://www.lfpress.com/life/healthandfitness/2011/05/27/18203301.html

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