Red Hill Studios, UCSF awarded two grants to develop computer-based physical therapy games

Red Hill Studios, a California-based serious games developer, in partnership with the UCSF School of Nursing, has been awarded two grants totaling $1.1 million from the National Institutes of Health to continue development, production and testing of computer-based physical therapy games for patients with Parkinson's disease and cerebral palsy.

The grants are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. To date, California has been awarded over $20.4 billion in stimulus grants, according to Recovery.gov.

Unlike off-the-shelf physical games, these specialized games encourage scientifically tested specific physical movements to improve gait and balance in patients with functional impairments and diseases.

"These two grants are the start of what may become a massive new area of health care," said Bob Hone, creative director of Red Hill Studios. "The emergence of low-cost motion sensing technologies has created an entirely new type of rehabilitation: physical therapy games. As a baby-boomer with a bad back, I know firsthand that physical therapy can be boring and tedious. These games will help make rehab fun and productive."

The Red Hill Studios/UCSF team previously received a Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer Research grant in 2007 from the NIH in the emerging field of computerized physical therapy games— the first research team in the United States to receive such an award.  The grant funded a study that successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using low-cost gaming equipment to create therapeutic games for people with Parkinson's disease.

"As the baby boomer population ages, the incidence of Parkinson's disease will increase dramatically, impacting health care costs and the quality of life for millions of people. Despite this, very little research has been done on using interactive technology for rehabilitation in these patients," said Glenna Dowling, RN, PhD, chair of the UCSF Department of Physiological Nursing. "The tailored games used in Phase 1 of the study were well-received and we are very optimistic that patients will use the program at home."

"Creating games that are both fun to play and provide concrete medical benefits takes a special kind of team," said Hone.  "The collaboration between Red Hill Studios and UCSF is the perfect combination of an experienced serious games developer and an outstanding health sciences research center. We are much more than the sum of our parts."