The lab is the only kind in the country where a patient — wearing 3-D glasses — stands on a platform surrounded by three large screens that create a virtual environment. The platform can shift and move, and a harness is in place to brace patients for a potential fall, Keshner said.
Researchers place retro-reflective markers on the patient’s body to record movement during natural visual disturbances in healthy individuals and in patients with neurological disorders.
In the field for nearly 25 years, Keshner began using this type of lab setting in 2000 in Chicago before expanding it at Temple. She wanted to test balance in more natural environments in order to apply results to real-world training and rehabilitation, she said.
“I never realized the power of vision in controlling our movements,” said Keshner, citing that the process of vision is slow compared to other senses.
People with inner-ear problems can grow too dependent on what they see to stay upright. Grocery stores, with their floor-to-ceiling shapes and colors, can cause some people to lose the sense of how to stay upright, [a phenomenon] called ‘supermarket syndrome,’ Keshner said.
Keshner has worked with patients to help them find other ways to maintain balance, such as teaching them to pay attention to sensory cues from their knees and hips instead of visual cues to stay standing.
As her research continues, Keshner plans to develop treatment tools, which will effectively reduce instability and falls in aging and clinical populations, she said.
Keshner’s research is currently funded by the National Institute for Aging and the National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health. She plans to start recruiting patients to the lab this summer for studies. |
