Researcher Benjamin Blundell, senior technical staff at the University of the Arts, London, England, and his team have set out to use the motion sensors in the Kinect to help individuals with amputations overcome phantom limb pain.
The patient dons a 3D visor and external gyroscopes, which are then translated into the “game” world. Similar to mirror-box therapy, the software mirrors the patient’s intact limb in place of the amputated limb and induces sensations of movements in the missing limb.
The system is currently in early testing and is just a research project. However, it has been accepted as a paper for GRAPP 2012, the international conference on computer graphics theory and applications, to be held February 24-26, in Rome, Italy.