Thanks to medical advances, life expectancy is increasing. With it comes an increased incidence of diseases, of which age is a risk factor. Stroke is among these diseases, and is one of the causes of long-term disability. The opportunity to treat these patients is via rehabilitation. A promising new technology that can enhance rehabilitation is virtual reality (VR). However, this technology is not widely used by elderly patients, and, moreover, the elderly often do not use modern technology at all. It therefore becomes a legitimate question whether elderly people will be able to use virtual reality in rehabilitation. This article presents a rehabilitation application dedicated to patients with upper limb paresis and unilateral spatial neglect (USN). The application was tested on a group of 60 individuals including 30 post-stroke patients with an average age of 72.83 years. The results of the conducted study include a self-assessment by the patients, the physiotherapist’s evaluation, as well as the patients’ performance of the exercise in VR. The study showed that elderly post-stroke patients are able to use virtual reality applications, but the ability to correctly and fully perform an exercise in VR depends on several factors. One of them is the ability to make logical contact (p = 0.0001 < 0.05). However, the study presented here shows that the ability to use VR applications does not depend on age but on mental and physical condition, which gives hope that virtual reality applications can be used in post-stroke rehabilitation among patients of all ages.

Stroke is a leading cause of disability among adults in Europe. Complications following stroke include limb paresis and unilateral spatial neglect (USN) syndrome. These complications significantly reduce the patient’s ability to function normally both in the short and long term. The chance to regain function is rehabilitation. One of the techniques in USN’s rehabilitation is repetitive visual scanning training, and the effects of rehabilitation can be enhanced by limb activation, such as moving objects from one side to the other. However, rehabilitation carried out in this way is monotonous, and the assistance of a physiotherapist is necessary. This paper proposes an alternative method of rehabilitation, using virtual reality. The created application contains the most important element that occurs during rehabilitation, which is a movement pattern. At the same time, it diversifies the rehabilitation process and allows rehabilitation without constant contact with a physiotherapist. This paper presents the most important strategies to minimize the occurrence of cybersickness, which were applied in the developed application. The created application was approved by a physician and tested with the participation of five post-stroke patients. The first results were positive. Increased motivation was observed among patients using VR in therapy. Patients noticed an improvement in motor function, as well as a reduction in reaction times. In addition, physiotherapists observed an improvement in the range of motion during virtual reality therapy compared to traditional therapy. This gives hope that the app can be used in clinical practice. However, in order for the app to be incorporated into clinical practice, it is necessary to conduct studies with a larger group of patients.

Virtual reality applications are becoming more and more popular. In addition to apparent uses like providing entertainment, VR applications are finding use in fields such as education, engineering, and architecture. The market for VR games used in medicine and sports is also thriving. The applications allow monitoring of an athlete’s progress, training advanced movements specific to a given sport, and are difficult to reproduce during traditional training. A significant advantage of this type of solution is the increased safety of the user and, thus, a lower risk of injury. The article presents a VR application designed for the training of a powerlifting triathlon. This sport consists of three exercises. They are performed by both strength athletes and those training in other sports to prepare for the season properly. Due to the fact that they are simple multi-joint exercises, they fall into the collection of exercises often performed by amateur trainers. Despite their significant popularity and the undoubted advantages of performing them, it is often observed that they are performed incorrectly, which significantly increases the risk of injury. The purpose of the application is to enable safe training and learning of correct movement patterns of powerlifting exercises, regardless of the user’s level of proficiency.

Stroke is the second cause of mortality and one of the leading causes of disability in adults. Post-stroke complications involve many different systems through which they involve difficulties in daily life. A very common complication that involves about 25–30% of post-stroke patients is spatial neglect syndrome, which involves the impaired perception of one’s body and space. An important aspect of treatment for stroke patients is rehabilitation, both while still in the hospital and later in rehabilitation facilities as well as at home. Many studies have shown effective virtual reality (VR)-based general therapy systems after stroke. In particular, systems for motor function rehabilitation. In the following paper, a game proposal for the rehabilitation of patients with unilateral spatial neglect syndrome is shown. This game takes into account the specific perception and special motor skills of patients with spatial neglect syndrome. The described game was presented to a team of rehabilitation specialists working at the Department of Neurology and Stroke Unit of the University Clinical Hospital in Białystok and was evaluated by these specialists.