Recent Advances on Using Virtual Reality Technologies for Rehabilitation

In recent years there has been a blossoming use of advanced technologies across a wide range of applications in the general area of health care and clinical practice, one such genre being the use of virtual reality technologies for rehabilitation and to support people with disabilities. This development has been driven by a combination of factors related to increasing clinical need, technological advancements, and developing communities of excellence in the virtual rehabilitation field.

Underlying the development of effective safe systems, repeatable and comparative therapy programmes is the need to follow structured design principles and frameworks. Several papers within this volume are written from this perspective highlighting again the need for user centric and inclusive design principles as well as the need to assess the efficacy of virtual procedures and processes against more traditional means of development and therapy.

Collectively, this volume of papers demonstrates the very significant advances that have been made across the past two decades of technological development in the area of virtual rehabilitation and highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to developing virtual rehabilitation systems that meet the needs of patients, therapists and other care givers.