Nintendo Wii remotes aren’t just about having fun anymore. Scientists can now use them to help diagnose children with an eye disease called ocular torticollis, which causes involuntary head tilting.
Jeong-Min Hwang and colleagues at the Seoul National University College of Medicine used Wii controllers to develop an infrared optical head tracker (IOHT), which measures and records the position and angle of the head in real-time.
Ocular torticollis occurs in 1.3 percent of children and requires precise measurements of an abnormal head position to properly evaluate and treat. Scientists say head positioning measurements can be difficult to obtain in a clinical setting, but are more accurate when a child is in his or her natural state of play.
“Considering its high performance, ease of use and low cost, we believe IOHT has the potential to be widely used as a head posture measuring device in clinical practice.”
Nintendo Wii Remote can help diagnose ocular torticollis [SlashGear]
Photo via flickr/Christian Cardova
