Care That Comes Home

How a Partnership with the Glenrose Hospital Foundation Is Expanding Stroke Recovery in Rural Alberta Through Virtual Reality

A stroke can occur in anyone at any age and can be a life‑altering event, bringing sudden physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that create uncertainty for patients throughout their recovery.

Advances in health technology have improved stroke-survival in Albertans; however, access to rehabilitation and expert-led, intensive therapy has been slow to match pace, particularly for Albertans living in rural areas.

Consider this: You have had a stroke, and you live two hours outside of Edmonton. That is two hours away (a four-hour round trip) from any specialist or rehabilitation centre that can provide the prescribed amount of care and therapy you need. A rehabilitation therapist can only travel to your local clinic once every two to three weeks, and you don’t have the resources to travel into the city two to three times a week for therapy. The already long and difficult road to recovery and independence may seem completely out of reach.

The Stroke Recovery with Virtual Reality (STRIVE) project is one of four projects included in the Creating the Future of Rehabilitation Care program, a $2-million investment in rehabilitation advancement funded by Alberta Innovates and the Glenrose Hospital Foundation.

STRIVE is an early-stage implementation project that delivers expert-guided stroke rehabilitation directly into the homes of rural Albertans, using immersive virtual reality (VR) and AI to help analyze athletic and orthopaedic injuries. The platform offers gamified modules that clinicians can remotely prescribe, monitor, and adapt therapy for motor recovery, visual-spatial cognition, and post-stroke aphasia, a communication disorder affecting speech, writing, and comprehension. It was developed as a partnership between Dr. Sean Dukelow (of the Foothills Medical Centre and the University of Calgary), Red Iron Labs, and Alberta Health Services.

“A lot of the tasks we do in stroke rehabilitation are really repetitive,” Dr. Dukelow said of the motivation behind the program. “It takes thousands of repetitions to retrain the brain to do something like reaching. The more fun and engaging you can make exercises, the more likely the patient will have a positive outcome.”

Unlike traditional tele-rehabilitation, this technology increases the ability to “dose” therapy without increasing strain on clinics and rehabilitation therapists. Patients can safely complete guided exercises between therapist check-ins, while clinicians receive real-time data on engagement and progress. 

Those exercises—homework, as Dr. Dukelow calls it—are an important part of any stroke rehabilitation regiment. The STRIVE project stands out by marrying those exercises with engaging visuals through the VR headset, resulting in an immersive patient experience that inspires engagement, movement, and enjoyment.

“The VR is the homework,” Dr. Dukelow said. "It’s therapy that doesn't feel like therapy. If you give someone a structured tool to increase repetitions, make it something the patient will want to do and they'll end up with better outcomes.”

This system is designed for rural and remote Alberta, using pre-configured, mobile-network enabled VR headsets that do not require home internet access. This technology would make high-quality, specialized care available closer to home, no matter where you live in Alberta.

This project has worked with volunteer patients who have completed formal rehabilitation and cannot access further rehabilitation care as it is not publicly available. Volunteering for rehabilitation technology research studies allows these patients to continue their journey to recovery under care, while helping to develop the technology for future patients.

One of these patients is David Impey, a stroke survivor and active member of Alberta's stroke care and rehabilitation network including through Calgary’s Stroke Rehabilitation Centre.

“In one unit, these balls were bouncing all over the place. I had a shield that I had to move by moving my hand from one side to the other to divert the ball. That was a lot of fun. I did that for about 10 minutes, and I was moving all over the place,” he said.

“I didn’t have any physical problems from my stroke. Mine was aphasia—speech, listening, and comprehension,” he continued. “Having done so much work with people with strokes, I can imagine this tool would be amazing for those that have less movement in their shoulders and arms.”

As existing modules receive glowing reviews from program volunteers, STRIVE is working to transition from testing to active use in outpatient and in-home rehabilitation through the Assisted Living Alberta’s Community Accessible Rehabilitation program and Alberta Health Services’ Early Support Discharge Program.

STRIVE is about helping Albertans by providing improving access to care, increasing recovery potential, providing support to caregivers and families, and creating a more sustainable health system.

But more than that, it is about helping Albertans recover, not just function, but dignity, confidence, autonomy over their care, and connection to everyday life.

If you suspect that someone is having a stroke, remember to use FAST and call 911:

Face: Is it drooping?

Arms: Can you raise both?

Speech: Is it slurred or jumbled?

Time: Call 9-1-1 immediately

Visit Alberta Health Services for more information on stroke care and response.

For more information on the STRIVE project and research participation, please contact Rachel Stone or Matt Chilvers at robotlab@ucalgary.ca.

For more information on the Creating the Future of Rehabilitation Care program, please contact media@albertainnovates.ca.