Extended reality boccia shows positive rehabilitation effects
Space-saving version of Paralympic sport increases motivation, mobility among older adults
2025-05-12
(Press-News.org)
Boccia’s appeal and rising popularity comes from its showcase as a Paralympic sport that can be enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities. An Osaka Metropolitan University team has developed an extended reality version of the game as a rehabilitation program, showing how the game that requires accuracy and strategy can aid motor and cognitive skills.
Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science Associate Professor Masataka Kataoka’s research group developed Boccia XR so that the program can be introduced even in environments with limited space. The researchers investigated changes in mood among participants over 65 before and after experiencing Boccia XR, traditional boccia, and treadmill walking, as well as lower limb muscle activity during exercise.
Participants reported better moods, vitality, and energy after experiencing both Boccia XR and traditional boccia. There was no significant difference in lower limb muscle activity during any of the programs, though muscle activity of the rectus femoris, which helps extend the knee, increased during both types of boccia compared to the treadmill.
“Boccia XR could be effective as a rehabilitation exercise for older adults in terms of both physical and emotional effects, and since it does not require a large court, it is practical for indoor environments such as hospitals and nursing care facilities,” stated Professor Kataoka. “Since this research was designed to verify immediate effects, we plan to conduct further studies to investigate long-term results in a larger population of older adults and to continue updating Boccia XR.”
The findings were published in PLOS One.
###
About OMU
Established in Osaka as one of the largest public universities in Japan, Osaka Metropolitan University is committed to shaping the future of society through “Convergence of Knowledge” and the promotion of world-class research. For more research news, visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ and follow us on social media: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2025-05-12
Vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG) is a nonlinear spectroscopic method widely used to investigate the molecular structure and dynamics of surface systems. However, in far-field observations, the spatial resolution of this method is constrained by the diffraction limit, which restricts its ability to resolve molecular details in inhomogeneous structures smaller than the wavelength of light. To address this limitation, we developed a tip-enhanced VSFG (TE-SFG) spectroscopy system based on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Using this system, we ...
2025-05-12
VIEW EMBARGOED ARTICLE
In an effort to curb misuse of opioids and prevent overdose deaths, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia released a legally enforceable practice standard, Safe Prescribing of Drugs with Potential for Misuse/Diversion, in 2016. This document limited prescribing of opioids for chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) with specific prescribing practices that clinicians were obligated to follow.
In research that tested the effects of the 2016 practice standard on prescribing to patients with CNCP, researchers found ...
2025-05-12
Promising new AI tools are being developed to protect and preserve the cultural traditions and heritage of marginalized or indigenous communities, including language, folklore, oral traditions, and community wisdom.
These advances have prompted industry experts to highlight the potential for culturally aware AI systems, which can ensure unique traditions are not only remembered but also shared and reimagined across generations.
But to continue this positive trend, tech companies must ensure the AI-based systems they develop are representative and build bridges across cultures, experts ...
2025-05-12
A major new international study has found that young adults in low- and middle-income countries who are sex workers, gay men, transgender or living with HIV are facing a surge in online abuse - from harassment and blackmail to the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
Researchers from The University of Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies warn this abuse is becoming increasingly normalised and is moving between online and in-person threats, with most victims having little access to support or justice.
The study — the largest of its kind — focuses ...
2025-05-12
Overconfident chief executives and their risky behaviours can be partly restrained through credit ratings, new research finds.
Researchers led by Bangor University in Wales in the United Kingdom and other institutions including Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, Vlerick Business School in Brussels, Belgium and The University of Aberdeen in Scotland found that the creditworthiness of a company can hugely influence how its chief executive behaves – especially during corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
The research, which is published in the journal, European Financial Management, is based on data from 916 firms in the United States who were rated by American ...
2025-05-12
In a new editorial in the AAAS publication Science & Diplomacy, Kimberly Montgomery, Director of International Affairs and Science Diplomacy at AAAS, reflects on whether the United States should develop a national science diplomacy strategy amid significant change to U.S. federal policy. Montgomery believes that the Trump administration should develop such a strategy – to help define a vision and direction for the U.S. It should outline how related policies “can advance U.S. diplomatic objectives, including fostering economic growth,” she writes. “And that strategy should detail how it will work with the private ...
2025-05-11
Early in the covid-19 pandemic, the failure of UK government advisers to follow World Health Organization (WHO) advice and emerging evidence from East Asia that suppression could bring the virus under control quickly led to avoidable UK deaths, argues an expert in The BMJ today.
Suppression aims to avoid national lockdowns and maintain economic activity for most of the population by introducing surveillance systems to bring new outbreaks under control quickly, thus reducing the reproductive rate of infection (R0) to below 1 and ...
2025-05-11
New research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Malaga, Spain (11-14 May) and published in the journal eClinicalMedicine finds that first generation weight-loss medications like liraglutide and exenatide appear to show anti-cancer benefits beyond weight loss.
“Our study found a similar incidence of obesity-related cancer among patients treated with first-generation glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s) and with bariatric surgery over an average of ...
2025-05-11
Individuals who lived with obesity as children are less likely to be in work or studying in their mid-20s than their peers, new research being presented at year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025) has found.
They are also more likely to be on long-term sick leave, the Swedish study of the long-term labour market outcomes of childhood obesity found.
“Rates of childhood obesity are higher in individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds than in those from higher socio-economic positions,” explains Dr Emilia Hagman, of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
“The reasons for this are complex but one contributing factor may be ...
2025-05-11
New research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Malaga, Spain (11-14 May) reveals that adverse waist-to-height ratio trajectories (a marker for central obesity) during childhood may increase cardiometabolic and cardiovascular risk at 10 years old.
Notably, children with gradually increasing central obesity from birth were more likely to show early signs of metabolic and cardiovascular risk by age 10. This included elevated blood pressure and higher levels of biomarkers linked to systemic inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Extended reality boccia shows positive rehabilitation effects
Space-saving version of Paralympic sport increases motivation, mobility among older adults
