{"id":959825,"date":"2026-11-05T23:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/959825\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T23:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:10:12","slug":"how-augmented-reality-is-helping-patients-stay-motivated-for-physiotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/959825\/","title":{"rendered":"How augmented reality is helping patients stay motivated for physiotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At McMaster University, Dr. Stevie Foglia, right, monitors Annette Bullen as she does exercises with ARISE augmented reality glasses to improve the mobility in her neck.Kenneth Chou\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Each day, Annette Bullen dons a pair of augmented reality (AR) glasses that look like Ray-Bans and does about 15 minutes of exercises to help improve the mobility in her neck. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hip. My kids call me Maverick,\u201d says the 59-year-old from Caledonia, Ont., referencing Tom Cruise\u2019s character in the Top Gun movies. Bullen was diagnosed with a rare head and neck cancer called mucoepidermoid carcinoma in 2023. Multiple surgeries and radiation treatment left her barely able to move her head and neck and caused problems eating. <\/p>\n

Bullen\u2019s physiotherapist introduced her to the Augmented Reality Integrated Sensorimotor Exercise (ARISE) platform. ARISE\u2019s specially designed glasses project virtual objects onto her real-life environment that guide her through physiotherapy exercises and offer real-time feedback on her progress. For example, she tracks a virtual orb as it moves through a virtual spiral, controlling the tracking with her head and neck movements. <\/p>\n

Bullen says the exercises have improved her range of motion, and that being able to do them at home rather than in a clinical setting is a big advantage. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as you can connect to Wi-Fi, it will run,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve visited my parents in Watford, Ont., and I\u2019ve done them there. I visited my son in Durham, Ont., and I even went to Mont-Tremblant [in Quebec] and I could do them there. So there is a great flexibility within that program that keeps me motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Two pairs of ARISE glasses.Kenneth Chou\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Gamified interventions \u2018can be a bit more fun\u2019<\/p>\n

ARISE is one of a growing number of wearable AR devices being used in physiotherapy and rehabilitation health care, including mobility, balance and fall prevention for seniors.<\/p>\n

Stevie Foglia, founder and CEO of Neuro-Mod Inc., a McMaster University-based health technology company in Hamilton, Ont., began developing ARISE in 2022 to treat chronic neck pain during his PhD. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe ran a study on older individuals and saw some really nice improvements with mobility, function and pain,\u201d says Dr. Foglia, who runs Neuro-Mod with Dr. Aimee Nelson and Dr. Harsha Shanthanna. The next step was to advance the technology into other applications patients consistently expressed a need for, he says, such as balance and fall prevention. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou play these gamified-type training interventions that help with your mobility, your posture, centre of balance, things like that.\u201d Patients can view the data themselves to see how they\u2019re progressing and the platform also connects with clinicians so they can monitor their patients\u2019 progress remotely. <\/p>\n

Falls are a major risk for older adults, often leading to injury, reduced independence and lower quality of life. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, falls are the leading cause of injury-related hospitalizations among people aged 65 or older, and the cost of fall-related injuries among this group was estimated to be $5.6-billion in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cBehind these figures are people who may hesitate to leave home, withdraw from their communities or question whether they can continue living independently,\u201d says Xiru Wang, a neurophysiology PhD student at McMaster who is using the ARISE platform to examine this issue. (Dr. Foglia and Wang are currently recruiting subjects for their study on the use of augmented reality in balance and mobility training.)<\/p>\n

Anita Gross, an associate clinical professor in the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at McMaster University, says that loss of motivation can be a major barrier to compliance with prescribed rehabilitation programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that can be pretty boring to do on a regular basis,\u201d says Gross, who was the physiotherapist who introduced Bullen to ARISE. \u201cBut by gamifying the mobility training and giving them target scores to pursue, it can be a bit more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The view from behind ARISE glasses: Annette Bullen tracks a virtual orb as it moves through a virtual spiral, controlling the crosshair with her head and neck movements. The on-screen data shows how she is doing, and her real-life environment remains visible.Supplied<\/p>\n

\u2018Real innovation\u2019 supporting older adults<\/p>\n

Neuroscientist Dr. Allison Sekuler, president and chief scientist for the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation at Baycrest in Toronto, says \u201cthis is probably the most exciting time that I\u2019ve lived through\u201d because of how the colliding technologies of AR, VR (virtual reality), AI, robotics and sensors are transforming research and health care. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve also got an aging population and now we\u2019re starting to see these two areas connecting,\u201d Dr. Sekuler says. \u201cSo we\u2019re seeing real innovation supporting older adults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Dr. Sekuler says she doesn\u2019t favour one technology over another because it depends on its specific use, AR is especially exciting for her. \u201cIt\u2019s not separating you from the real world,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s adding more information to the real world that is useful to you, whereas virtual reality is like shutting you off from the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an issue that Dr. Foglia encountered while developing ARISE. He says he started creating the platform with VR, \u201cbut we saw a lot of side effects like nausea and vertigo with the participants being thrown into a full VR space. The AR allowed us to mitigate those effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes that participants in his initial study asked to continue the ARISE treatment after the study ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where we realized we need to make this technology more accessible to a larger population, and that\u2019s why we are focusing our efforts, not only on the research side, but also on the side of getting it into physiotherapy clinics, so that a larger population can access the tech.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: At McMaster University, Dr. Stevie Foglia, right, monitors Annette Bullen as she does…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":959826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1401,327709,128,174979,4116,61026,49,48,407,84,2922,327708,1705,2654,61,260,406],"class_list":["post-959825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-adveditorial","tag-advtech","tag-aging","tag-aging-in-place","tag-augmented-reality","tag-balance","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-noastack","tag-ordid4182161995edit","tag-retirement","tag-seniors","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}