Gamification and Multimodal Cueing in Physiotherapy

Advances in mobile devices have made possible the adherence to healthy lifestyles and workout routines with less supervision from a professional, for example, a strength trainer or physiotherapist. Mobile health games in particular can help individuals with chronic conditions and disabilities who require physiotherapy and rehabilitation to stay motivated and encouraged during their physiotherapy process. We developed a mobile game application, Neblina Wrist Physio that works with a wearable motion sensor to look at the effect of gamification and multimodal cueing, i.e. using stimuli to facilitate movement initiation and continuation, mechanisms on wrist physiotherapy exercises. The results of our study showed that gamification and cueing are effective in keeping users entertained and more engaged in physiotherapy exercises. At the same time, the impact of cueing modalities in improving the quality of gamified physiotherapy exercises is different based on the difficulty of the exercise and the specific game.

Screenshots of the available games in Neblina Wrist Physio

Publications

  • Haghbin, N.* and Kersten-Oertel, M. (2021). Multimodal Cueing in Gamified Physiotherapy: A Preliminary Study. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health – ICT4AWE, ISBN 978-989-758-506-7; ISSN 2184-4984, pages 137-145.[PDF (preprint)].