Rehabilitating force (Image: Jenn Shock/chronic-shock/Flickr)

WHEN Ross Clark read in New Scientist (29 March 2008, p 26) that the US military considered the Nintendo Wiimote controller accurate enough to control bomb disposal robots, it set him thinking. Could the Wii’s skiing and snowboarding attachment, the balance board, help rehabilitate people who have had a stroke?

“I wanted to know if it would be any good for assessing the standing balance of patients,” says Clark. He reasoned that being able to measure the centre of pressure of a person’s foot will be useful to a physio who is helping someone relearn how to stand. Yet the lab-grade …