National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Yes, and where there's something that is commercially available, we use it, like the Wii.

National Defence committee  I'm glad you asked that. I brought with us our package from our centre for rehab research and development. There are several experiments and studies using the CAREN system shown here. I can leave this with you to look over.

National Defence committee  The great thing about the system is that we can get objective measurements from it, so we can put markers on the patient depending on what part or what we're looking at. We can get objective data, so you can see how much force they're putting through their prosthetic limb, you can see what they're attending to, and you can see what they're recognizing, what they're not recognizing.

National Defence committee  They love it. Because it's realistic, it's exactly what rehab should be. You're making the person more functional in a normal environment, in a real environment. The men and women of the forces, especially, they really love it.

National Defence committee  That's what's so wonderful about this piece of equipment. For instance, the sergeant I showed you has an upper amputation, above the knee. Normally we'd work with someone like that for probably at least a good month before we'd take them outside on uneven ground. Now with this system, two weeks after he got used to his prosthetic limb, we had him using the system, getting the platform to go back and forth and in different directions.

National Defence committee  That's a great question. All of the military patients we've had are active servicemen. While they're with us, that's considered their service and they are active members. My understanding is there's quite a rigorous physical test that they have to pass in order to remain in the military, especially for some of them.

National Defence committee  Yes. Our outpatient program is huge.

National Defence committee  Well, we have waiting lists for all our programs. We try to minimize the waiting times for our in-patients. For someone coming from acute care to an in-patient bed, we try to get them in as fast as possible, but—

National Defence committee  No. There are rehab centres throughout the country.

National Defence committee  For this machine, there are two: ours and one in Edmonton at the Glenrose. There are other similar smaller units, but we were the first with the extended system.

National Defence committee  What we do is evaluate each patient and see what their needs are. Then we work on specific goals. We can alter the environment. We can alter the program. For instance, for someone who has trouble concentrating, we would maybe have them in an easy environment, and then little tasks will come up on the screen that they have to attend to, or signs, so that they have to look at signs.

National Defence committee  Yes. We've trained our physiotherapists and our occupational therapists. As I said, we're hoping that some of our speech therapists.... I understand there are some programs where you get instant feedback on how your mouth is moving and working.

National Defence committee  Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for inviting us. My name is Helen Zipes. I'm the clinical director of the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre. With me today is my colleague, Sean Gehring, who is the manager of the specialized care stream. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the rehab virtual reality lab.