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Stephen Scott, creator of the medical tool and a professor at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen's University, developed the tool to assess brain function. This type of objective tool could eventually be used to design better therapies for treating brain disease or injury.
The medical tool is called the KINARM Assessment Station, and it is the only objective tool capable of assessing brain function. KINARM consists of a chair with robotic arms and a virtual reality system which guides the patients through several tasks. These standardized tasks mimic everyday activities such as hitting a ball with a virtual paddle. After completing these tasks, KINARM creates a detailed evaluation that specifies any abnormal behavior.
"The beauty of this system is that it captures the subtle deficits caused by a brain injury that are not measured by traditional tests," said Scott. "Traditional testing methods, such as touching a finger to the nose or bouncing a ball, just don't capture the complexity of brain processes."
Comment: See also our forum discussion The Neanderthal Legacy for more information on this topic.