The Effect of Video Game Exercise on Dynamic Balance and Gait in Individuals With Huntington's Disease

The Effect of Video Game Exercise on Dynamic Balance and Gait in Individuals With Huntington's Disease

The Effect of Video Game Biofeedback Modulated Exercise (ViBE)on Dynamic Balance and Gait in Individuals With Huntington's Disease

To examine the benefits of using a video-game, Dance, Dance, Revolution, as an exercise modality to improve gait and balance in individuals with Huntington's disease.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a therapist-guided Video-game Biofeedback Modulated Exercise (ViBE) program administered via Dance Dance Revolution to improve dynamic balance, gait and mobility in individuals with Huntington's Disease. Secondary aims were to explore whether the ViBE intervention would improve quality of life, fall risk, and neuropsychological functions. The investigators hypothesized that the video-game program would lead to greater improvements in walking, dynamic balance, quality of life, fall risk, and neuropsychological function than a control handheld video game program. Since motivation is essential to the long-term maintenance of an exercise program the investigators were also interested in finding out how successful people with Huntington's Disease were at playing Dance Dance Revolution, what their perceptions were of playing the game, and whether they thought that it was beneficial

Observation of gait and balance with quantifiable 16-item assessment with an ordinal scale of 0-2 for up to a total score of 32, with higher scores indicating better performance. It is reliable and predicts falls among those with Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.

Examines ability to step over an object in multiple directions and is timed. Participants are instructed to step over a cane into each square in a specific order. Faster times indicate better balance. It has been shown to predict falls in the elderly.

Individuals rate their balance confidence from 1-100 on 16 tasks and total score is the mean; higher scores indicate greater confidence and lower fall risk. The Activities-Specific Balance Confidence Scale is reliable and valid in elderly and neurological populations.

This questionnaire is a measure of quality of life addressing 4 domains including physical, psychological, social, and environment health. Responses on 26 items are on a five-point scale (from 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied) and each item is added to achieve a total score for each domain. The mean score for each domain is calculated then multiplied by 4 to get the domain score which are then transformed to a scaled score of 0-100 comparable to the original WHOQOL-100 therefore a total score between 0-400 with high scores indicating better quality of life. The WHOQOLBref has good reliability and validity.

Inclusion Criteria: adults 18 - 79 with a diagnosis of Huntington's disease Exclusion Criteria: cannot walk 10 feet without assistance, any other neurologic condition