Serious Games Enhancing The Rehabilitation Environment – Update

Serious Games promoting a breakthrough in rehabilitation medicine for balance and postural disorders

Via: MOTEK MEDICAL – Body Posture Serious Game

In my prior post Serious Games Enhancing The Rehabilitation Environment, I had already addressed CAREN, MOTEK MEDICAL leading product. CAREN  (Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment) is a multi-purpose, multi-sensory system for diagnosis, rehabilitation, evaluation and recording. It records a person's ability to balance and control movement. The system works in real time and enables the creation of a range of experiences in a controlled environment that can be repeated using the principles of virtual reality technologies.

CAREN systems always consist of a motion base, motion capture, a projection screen and the D-flow software

Body Posture Rehabilitation As A Serious Game

MOTEK MEDICAL offers powerful and flexible solutions for people with balance and postural disorders: by applying a Serious Games approach, patients as players achieve higher levels and scores as they perform well. 

The application illustrates well how immersion and motivation can enhance performance, specifically for patients with balance and postural disorders who are afraid of incurring pain during rehabilitation sessions.

In the Body Posture Application, the patient needs to mimic postures of a hollow avatar that advances towards him on a screen.

Therapists control a variety of input parameters for challenging postural stability conditions. They can increase difficulty and can also input how accurately the patient must move into the posture in order to receive positive feedback 

MOTEK’s Body Posture Serious Game challenges players to move and stand in different postures without making them conscious of the fact that they are being trained.

The whole scenario provides a positive game- like experience

Body Posture  was also the winner of the Dutch Game Awards for the Best Serious Game 2011.

The Dutch Game Awards showcases the achievements of the Dutch Game Industry, highlighting both the quality and quantity of games produced in the Netherlands. The purpose of the awards is to spotlight the achievements of the Dutch Game industry and to promote The Netherlands as a game development country to the world.

(Serious) Games For Health New Journal Gathers Some Of The Brightest Folks Around

(Serious) Games for Health Journal: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications is a bimonthly peer-reviewed journal

Via: Games For Health Journal

(Serious) Games for Health Journal: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications is a bimonthly journal dedicated to the development, use, and applications of game technology for improving physical and mental health and well-being (please find also Health Games and Medical Games categories).

The Journal breaks new ground as the first to address this emerging, widely-recognized, and increasingly adopted area of healthcare.

Serious Games are rapidly becoming an important tool for improving health behaviors ranging from healthy lifestyle habits and behavior modification, to self-management of illness and chronic conditions to motivating and supporting physical activity. Games are also increasingly used to train healthcare professionals in methods for diagnosis, medical procedures, patient monitoring, as well as for responding to epidemics and natural disasters. 

Games for Health Journal is a must for anyone interested in the research and design of health games that integrate well-tested, evidence-based behavioral health strategies to help improve health behaviors and to support the delivery of care.

Games for Health Journal coverage includes:

·         Nutrition, weight management, obesity

·         Disease prevention, self-management, and adherence

·         Cognitive, mental, emotional, and behavioral health

·         Games in home-to-clinic telehealth systems

Games for Health Journal is under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Bill Ferguson, PhD, and other leading investigators. View the entire editorial board that includes some of the brightest folks around that deal with this topic.

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HealthGames Emerge as Important New Therapeutic Tools for Physical and Mental Healthand Well-Being