Towards an adaptive gaming framework for TeleRehabilitation

Abstract

This paper introduces a framework for building adaptive serious games in the context of telerehabilitation. This framework takes advantage of 3D motion tracking and virtual reality devices, to present a personalized and adaptive gaming system, which allows patients to perform exercises as suggested by their physiotherapy experts, while being fully engaged in a gamified 3D scene. Virtual characters are dynamically displayed within scenes to guide users through the different set of required gestures. Virtual assistants have the ability to learn and adapt to the best level of difficulty in real-time based on the user performance. An intelligent alerting and automatic correction components are embedded in our engine, so that pre-calculated gesture patterns are correlated and matched with patients' gestures. Consequently, the system estimates the perceived difficulty of gestures by the patient, so that automatic adjustments are executed to ensure a highly engaging and adaptive serious game experience. A pilot study has been conducted to prove the usability and effectiveness of our gamified physiotherapy solution.