Is it a video game? Is it a means to help potential power wheelchair users to learn to operate their equipment, including alternative driving controls?
With the new LOONZ system from Stealth Products, the answer is yes.
The short description for LOONZ is it’s a video game starring a young elephant named Tiki, an intrepid explorer who travels via hot air balloon. Gamers steer Tiki in his balloon, avoiding obstacles and maneuvering to collect tokens that can be used as the game advances.
But behind the scenes, LOONZ has multiple clinical goals: To help gamers learn to operate their power wheelchairs and alternative driving controls. To help clinicians assess clients for power chair skills. And possibly, to demonstrate to anxious parents that their child might be more ready for a power chair than they think.
Stealth co-developed LOONZ with Trident Research, who also co-developed Stealth’s i-Drive power chair controls system. LOONZ is played via i-Drive, thus creating a power chair assessment tool for clinicians and ATPs. In fact, thanks to its i-Drive interface, LOONZ can be played without using a power chair at all – so clients can be assessed without needing to be in a demo power chair or in a wide-open environment.
While seating and wheeled mobility professionals will likely focus on LOONZ’s clinical abilities, Gabriel Romero, Stealth’s VP of sales and marketing, makes it clear that LOONZ is also a way to bring together those who have disabilities and those who don’t.
“I’m a gamer myself,” Romero said, “and I started noticing the most popular games were not necessarily friendly to gamers with disabilities. Working with Trident, we set out to develop a game for wheelchair users that could also be used as an assessment tool for clinicians.”
LOONZ will be available starting Nov. 6 via Apple’s App Store.
