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Accenture builds VR game with SAP Leonardo to offer more therapy options for amputees

October 8, 2018

Posted by: Anasia D'mello

Daniel Gonzalez of Accenture

Accenture has built an application on SAP Cloud Platform using SAP Leonardo technologies and virtual reality to help amputees overcome challenges when confronted with phantom limb pain.

The Accenture Liquid Studio for SAP Leonardo in Brazil used an armband that uses SAP Leonardo capabilities and virtual reality dashboards to create a gamification platform that encourages patients to wear appropriate prosthetics and make what can be monotonous therapy exercises more appealing and engaging.

The dashboard also helps physical therapists diagnose the treatment of phantom limb pain more accurately and create personalised therapy plans with improved detecting, measuring and analysing of electrical signals in patients’ muscles.

Accenture is testing the connected armband in physical therapy treatments at the Hospital das Clinicas in São Paulo, Brazil. The initial findings suggest that patients using the connected armband and application reported higher self-esteem and made greater improvements than just physical therapy alone. The physical therapists reported more accurate calibration of prosthetics and noticed bigger leaps in their patients’ progressive treatments.

“Phantom limb pain is a chronic, physically and mentally debilitating condition for most patients after undergoing amputations,” said Candida Luzo, head of Occupational Therapy at Hospital das Clinicas. “Accenture has demonstrated a viable, low-cost option to assist in the rehabilitation of patients with amputations. This will be an invaluable tool in our physical and occupational therapy programs.”

“Our application takes intelligent technologies such as Internet of Things, analytics and virtual reality to rapidly create an easy-to-use, cost-effective application. It captures real-time data for better measurements and personalised therapy plans that can improve physical progress and decrease phantom limb pain for people with amputations,” said Daniel Gonzalez, managing director and Accenture Liquid Studio Lead for Accenture Brazil. “We developed this application with input from healthcare professionals and patients to help drive social change and transformation by tackling challenges in new ways.”

The application will be donated by Accenture to hospitals and made available on multiple platforms.

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