|
|
Integration of Exergames and Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Cerebral Palsy Children Host Publication: Handbook on Cerebral Palsy Authors: B. Bonnechère, B. Jansen, L. Omelina and S. Van Sint Jan Publisher: Nova Science Publishers Publication Year: 2014 ISBN: 978-1-63321-852-9
Abstract: How to motivate children (patients) to perform their exercises during rehabilitation
or at home? This is the challenge met by physical therapists in their daily professional
practice with disabled patients. Indeed, a lack of motivation is one of the most frequent
reasons for patients to drop out.
Commercial video games have significantly evolved over the last decade. Today
computer performance and play experience allow new perspectives for rehabilitation.
Thanks to new gaming controllers (Nintendo Wii Fit™, Microsoft Xbox Kinect™, etc.)
video game playing has changed from a passive (i.e., the player is seated on a sofa) to an
active experience: players have to move in order to interact with games.
Clinicians are now prospecting the new potential use of these games in rehabilitation
mainly through testing available commercial games with patients suffering from various
pathologies (e.g., cerebral palsy, brain stroke, Parkinson disease, elderly…). Physical
rehabilitation must be based on active exercises, and new gaming strategy allows it.
Furthermore, the game environment is obviously a major advantage to increase patient
motivation to perform their rehabilitation schemes. Today challenge is to use games as
rehabilitation.
However, results of these first clinical tests using commercial video games are not as
good as first expected. Several limitations appeared when using commercial video games
in rehabilitation. Such games are designed for entertainment purpose and obviously do
not include any therapeutically know-how and strategies. Further, the architecture of the
games (i.e., tasks to achieve, visual background, etc) is not adapted for patients showing
various kinds of disabilities like motor or visual disorders. For example, most games are
based on scenario fast movements to succeed while such quick execution is often
contraindicated during many physical rehabilitation schemes related to neurological
disorders. Also, player motion accuracy requested by the player during the games is low
while most therapists will aim to improve patient joint control and coordination. In short,
commercial video games are not adapted for rehabilitation contrariwise the different
gaming controllers used offer interesting new perspectives for rehabilitation. The current
challenge for therapists is to help the game industry to develop specific games welladapted
for specific pathologies. Since a few years specific solutions have been
developed and tested with cerebral palsy children. This chapter presents an overview of
the different works that have been done in the field both using commercial games as well
as games specifically developed for the target group. Advantages and limits of each
approach will be then discussed. Finally, the last part of this chapter will focus on global
trends for future work and perspectives will be provided on how to integrate
rehabilitation aspects (physiotherapy, occupational therapy) in game scenarios.
|
|
