Virtual reality: A tool for the disabled people labour integration

Virtual Reality is commonly understood as a computer simulation that uses 3D graphics and devices to provide an interactive experience. It is being used nowadays in multiple sectors as industry, marketing, military, medicine... In the industry sector, this technology is emerging as an important tool to evaluate the man-machine interaction, especially when this fact has important effects on the safety of people, processes and facilities or in the environment. Some recent research works try to use VR to help people with disabilities to improve their quality of live. Some examples of this works are fields as stroke rehabilitation, enhancing mobility and accessibility, virtual environments and games for special needs, education and training, and speech and communication skills improvement. The Industrial Safety Unit (ISU) in Fundación LEIA has an emerging research line focused in 3D dynamic simulation, motion capture and immersive virtual reality. Till now, its work has been focused in industrial safety applications, especially in the field of ergonomics. From this background the team is now developing, amongst other matters, new applications for the people with disabilities as assessment of the safety and ergonomics of a workplace, workplaces design and redesign, assistive technology and education and training. In this work some initiatives of this group to test the use of VR to the labour integration of the collective of disabled people are presented.