UAB Engineering Students use the Wii for CPR from uabnews on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever been CPR certified, you know that it involves a lot of demonstration on a dummy that isn’t the best at giving feedback. But that’s the way it’s been done forever and it’s likely not going to change — although some undergrads at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are looking at a way to make the process a little more high-tech. They’ve designed a program, or “game” if you will, which integrates the Wiimote into the motions of the CPR training and lets you know if your compressions are deep enough, if you’re doing the right amount, etc. Sure, they could implement accelerometers and wireless data connections in the dummies, but we know that’s not going to happen.

It sounds kind of random, I know, but I think this is a good thing. My CPR training, while adequate, was less than stellar and more feedback and oversight would have been welcome. I’m not sure this Wii-PR will make it to the national stage or anything, but if it helps a few people learn a life-saving technique better than before, then it sounds like a winner to me.

It’ll be free and open source when it’s finished, though you will need a couple Wiimotes around to take advantage of it.

The next time you have a heart attack (that’s supposed to be a weekly occurrence right?) how would you like it if the person performing CPR on you was trained at home via a PC app using the Nintendo Wiimote? Well that’s exactly what biomedical engineering undergraduate students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have in mind. And given the fact that the American Heart Association has pledged $50,000 to fund their research, the idea must have some merit.

The students have been working on the concept since last January, and this past Spring a working prototype of the technology was demonstrated which is when the AHA stepped in and offered the grant. If all goes well, the UAB Wii CPR software would be made available for download from the American Heart Association website as open source code as early as this Fall. And I think the Wii Vitality sensor which Nintendo introduced at E3 this year has finally found its killer life-saving application.

[ PR - UAB Students’ Nintendo Wii CPR Earns American Heart Association Support ] VIA [ Popular Science ]