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St. John's Rehab Program

Vera Fung
Vera Fung

Affiliate scientist

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
St. John's Rehab
285 Cummer Ave., Room A089
Toronto, ON
M2M 2G1

Phone: 416-226-6780, ext. 57295
Fax: 416-226-6234

Administrative Assistant: Dafna Knittel-Keren
Phone: 416-226-6780, ext. 57091
Email: dafna.knittel-keren@sunnybrook.ca

Education:

  • B.Sc. (Hons), 2003, kinesiology and health sciences, York University, Canada
  • M.Sc.PT, 2005, physical therapy, University of Toronto, Canada

Appointments and Affiliations:

Research Foci:

  • Video games and virtual reality in rehabilitation
  • Outpatient rehabilitation in musculoskeletal conditions, neurology and burns

Research Summary:

The focus of Fung's research is to explore the role of active video gaming and virtual reality in rehabilitation. Since the onset of her involvement with research at St. John's Rehab in 2007, she has completed studies that investigate clinician perspectives regarding the use of Nintendo Wii in rehabilitation and the use of Nintendo Wii Fit in outpatients after total knee replacement.

Fung is the primary investigator of a project that explores the phenomenon of presence in adults with disabilities while playing Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect and gesture-based virtual reality. She is also an active contributor to the student research component of the masters of physical therapy program at the University of Toronto, advising on studies that investigate learning strategy effects on motor skill acquisition using Nintendo Wii, and investigating movement strategies used when playing active video game systems.

The results have been presented and displayed at conferences for the International Society of Burn Injuries, American Burn Association, Ontario Physiotherapy Association, Canadian Physiotherapy Association, GTA Rehab Network, American Congress of Physical Medicine and World Confederation of Physical Therapy.

Selected Publications:

See current publications list at PubMed.

  1. Fung V, Ho A, Shaffer J, Chung E, Gomez M. Use of Nintendo Wii Fit in the rehabilitation of outpatients following total knee replacement: a preliminary randomised controlled trial. Physiotherapy. 2012;98(3):183–8.
  2. Fung V, So K, Park E, Ho A, Shaffer J, Chan E, Gomez M. The utility of a video game system in the rehabilitation of burn and nonburn patients: a survey among occupational therapy and physiotherapy practitioners. J Burn Care Res. 2010;31(5):768–75.

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