Virtual reality and human interaction with it is a complex topic, and certainly not one which will be mastered overnight; but across the world, there is excellent research being carried out for all of these important domains. As humanity extends its understanding of the interplay with these system components, developers will be well-positioned to design better and more effective virtual reality interventions and come closer to realising the full potential of virtual reality for health and well-being. In this book, the authors present a number of short papers from research groups around the world working in this important and complex field. The chapters explore a range of issues, suggesting routes forward and offering insights into both the potential and the challenges of this rapidly maturing technology.

The use of virtual reality for learning, training, and rehabilitation for people with special needs has been on the rise in recent years. Virtual reality allows the user to be trained, to gather information and to perform rehabilitation tasks in the virtual reality space. It allows the user to perform independently, safely, and efficiently, in a combined product of sensory, motor, and cognitive skills. The design, development, and evaluation of such virtual reality environments is a multidisciplinary work, the integration of medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, neuroscience, psychology, education, engineering, computer science, and art. In this book we cover a broad range of topics from virtual reality-augmented therapy in the development of cognitive neuroscience perspectives on motor rehabilitation, the potential of virtual environments to improve orientation and mobility skills for people who are blind, virtual reality for people with cerebral palsy, haptic virtual reality technologies for visual impairment and blindness, perception of space and subsequent design changes needed for accessibility, autism spectrum disorder to improving cognitive and intellectual skills via virtual environments in a range of different topics such as mathematical performance or prospective memory.

Over the past twenty years, groups of therapists, researchers and engineers have seized the potential of virtual reality (VR) and its associated technologies to work together on designing and testing a great variety of rehabilitation devices and systems with the objective of improving the support for people with disabilities. Virtual reality technologies offer new paradigms for human exploration, understanding and support by providing participants a safe setting in which they can interact and develop goal-oriented activities within functional-virtual environments, especially when they find themselves in situations of cognitive, behavioural or motor disabilities. The solutions built from these technologies reduce patients' limitations of activity and participation by promoting the recovery of capabilities. The current diversification of VR technology can also lead to tools used at home so that the patient can pursue the training that was initiated with the therapist in the care centre. In this book you will find research on the rehabilitation in motor, cognitive and sensorial disorders.

The digitalization of society is spreading around the world and technology has become part of many people's daily lives. It acts as a means of communication, work, education and leisure. For populations with special needs (people with some kind of disability or disorder) technology can play an essential role in their rehabilitation and treatment. It also empowers the individuals themselves. The aim of this multi-disciplinary research for decades has been to explore, develop and evaluate innovative technology to aid people with disabilities through virtual reality and associated machinery. The field engages researchers from health sectors, areas of engineering and schools of education to collaborate in order to take on a holistic approach to meet these challenges.

In recent years, there has been a blossoming use of advanced technologies across a wide range of applications in the general area of health care and clinical practice; one such genre is the use of virtual reality technologies for the rehabilitation and support of people with disabilities. This development has been driven by a combination of factors related to increasing clinical need, technological advancements, and developing communities of excellence in the virtual rehabilitation field. In this book, we demonstrate recent advances that have been made across the past two decades of technological development in the area of virtual rehabilitation. The editors highlight the importance of a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to developing virtual rehabilitation systems that meet the needs of patients, therapists and other care givers.