From: Jerry Prothero <prothero@hitl.washington.edu>
Subject: EPUB: Medical thesis available


My master's thesis, "The Treatment of Akinesia Using Virtual Images",
is available from 

ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/VirtualReality/HITL/papers
/Thesis/Prothero/thesis.ps

The same directory contains a README file and illustrations.ps, which
consists of useful but not essential additional illustrations.

Jerry Prothero
prothero@hitl.washington.edu

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Abstract:

Parkinson's disease is characterized by three primary symptoms:
rigidity, tremor, and akinesia.  Akinesia refers to difficulty
initiating and continuing motions, in particular ambulation.  Most
akinetic patients are aided by the presence of visual cues (such as
bricks or cards) on the ground, which evoke a ``stepping over''
response; apparently, these cues can be used to fire neural ambulation
programs which are otherwise unreachable except via medication.

The intent of this thesis was to investigate the effectiveness of
providing visual cues which did not consist of physical objects placed
on the ground, and which could easily be carried around by the
patient.  Ideally, such cues would allow akinetic patients a wider
range of mobility with reduced medication and without the
impracticality of tangible cues.

We tested both a simple laser pointing device and the Virtual Vision
Sport (TM), a visor with a small lens mounted in front of one eye
reflecting a liquid crystal display (LCD).

The study indicated a marked improvement in unmedicated gait for
subjects using each of the laser pointer and images presented in the
Virtual Vision visor as the stimulus.  One of the subjects
unexpectedly learned to improve his gait without the presence of
visual cues, although this gait breaks down frequently in the presence
of distractions.