Self-rehabilitation of acquired brain injury patients including neglect and attention deficit disorder with a tablet game in a clinical setting

We designed and evaluated a whack-a-mole (WAM) style game (see Figure 1) in a clinical randomized controlled trial (RCT) with reminder-assisted but self-initiated use over the period of a month with 43 participants from a post-lesion pool. While game play did not moderate rehabilitative progress indices of standard neuropsychological control tests, it did significantly improve in-game performance when compared to the control group. Its performance indicators and interaction data were highly accurate in predicting neglect and which hand the patients used for input. Patients found playing beneficial to their rehabilitation and attributed gains in the attention training properties of the game. The game showed potential for bedside assessment, insight support, and motivation by providing knowledge about rehabilitative progress

Augmenting patient therapies with video game technology

PhD ThesisThere is an increasing body of work showing that video games can be used for more than just entertainment, but can also facilitate positive physical and mental changes. For people suffering debilitating side-effects from illnesses such as stroke, there is need to deliver and monitor effective rehabilitative physical therapies; video game technologies could potentially deliver an effective alternative to traditional rehabilitative physical therapy, and alleviate the need for direct therapist oversight. Most existing research into video game therapies has focussed on the use of offthe- shelf games to augment a patient’s ongoing therapy. There has currently been little progress into how best to design bespoke software capable of integrating with traditional therapy, or how to replicate common therapies and medical measurements in software. This thesis investigates the ability for video games to be applied to stroke rehabilitation, using modern gaming peripherals for input. The work presents a quantitative measurement of motion detection quality afforded by such hardware. An extendible game development framework capable of high quality movement data output is also presented, affording detailed analysis of player responsiveness to a video game delivered therapy for acute stroke. Finally, a system by which therapists can interactively create complex physical movements for their patients to replicate in a video game environment is detailed, enabling bespoke therapies to be developed, and providing the means by which rehabilitative games for stroke can provide an assessment of patient ability similar to that afforded by traditional therapies