Design and implementation of an integrative system for configurable exergames targeting the senior population

Exergames have been proposed as a solution for the promotion of physical activity in the senior population. The diversity of needs and limitations of the target users demand that the exergaming systems allow the configuration and adjustment of game parameters according to each user profile. Such systems are ideal to use in nursing homes, senior gymnasiums, or even rehabilitation centers. Health and sports professionals are then the main interacting users with the interface of such exergaming systems. Configuration can be difficult and time-consuming when considering complex systems with a significant amount of parameter choices. Since professionals working on such places already have time constraints, if they face long-time configuration of these systems they might give up of using them. Therefore, there is an evident need for systems that assist professionals in two ways. First, providing management support for training sessions and plans with exergames. Second, providing automatic decision-making processes that assist in game selection and parameters configuration to fit the user needs. The acceptance and effectiveness of such systems can only be achieved if the main prospective interactors with the system are involved in the development process so that the system can fulfill the users’ needs and expectations. This thesis reports on the design, implementation, and usability evaluation of an integrative system using some of the most-known human-centric techniques, such as interviews, card sorting, and paper prototyping. Results of a usability study of the UI and the main functionalities of the system showed a considerable acceptance and interest by the professionals. The usability study revealed to be a great resource to find aspects of the system that should be further considered for improvement in future iterations. Furthermore, the high results of the USE (Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Ease of use) questionnaire confirm that this system is a promising tool that sports professionals may be willing to use in their daily practice.A literatura suporta que os exergames, ou jogos que requerem exercício físico, constituem uma opção válida para promoção da atividade física na população idosa. A diversidade de necessidades e limitações do público-alvo exige que estes exergames sejam configuráveis de forma a permitir ajustar os parâmetros do jogo de acordo com o perfil de cada indivíduo. Estes sistemas personalizáveis são ideais para a utilização em lares, centros de dia, ginásios específicos para idosos ou até mesmo em centros de reabilitação. Os profissionais de saúde e de desporto são, assim, os principais utilizadores a definir as configurações destes exergames. Neste contexto, escolher as definições ideais para cada perfil pode ser um processo difícil e demorado, tendo em conta que a interface destes sistemas apresenta normalmente uma quantidade significativa de opções. Considerando que estes profissionais já têm constrangimentos de tempo na sua prática diária, se forem confrontados com uma interação longa e complexa com estes sistemas, podem acabar por desistir de usá-los. Neste sentido, existe uma clara necessidade de sistemas que auxiliem os profissionais a incluir os exergames na sua prática diária com a população idosa. Este sistema deverá assistir os profissionais de duas maneiras. Primeiro, que permita gerir sessões e planos de treino com os exergames. Segundo, que disponibilize processos de decisão automáticos de forma a auxiliar na escolha dos jogos, bem como nas configurações ideais para cada perfil de utilizador. A aceitação e a eficácia destes sistemas podem apenas ser alcançadas se os profissionais forem envolvidos no processo de desenvolvimento desde o início. Tal permitirá que este possa ser desenhado tendo em conta as suas necessidades e expectativas. Esta dissertação descreve as técnicas aplicadas no desenho, implementação e avaliação de um sistema integrativo para exergames, com base em algumas técnicas bem conhecidas na área de interação homemmáquina, como por exemplo entrevistas, card sorting e prototipagem em papel. Resultados de um estudo de usabilidade da interface do sistema integrativo demonstraram uma considerável aceitação e interesse por parte dos profissionais. O estudo de usabilidade revelou ser um bom recurso para encontrar aspetos do sistema que devem ser considerados para melhoramento em futuras iterações. Além disso, os resultados promissores do questionário USE (Utilidade, satisfação e facilidade de uso) confirmam que os profissionais poderão estar interessados em usar este sistema na sua prática diária

Characterizing the use of interactive technologies for cognitive rehabilitation in portuguese healthcare institutions

The increasing predominance of cognitive deficits following neurological conditions such as dementia and stroke is a major concern in Portugal. Cognitive rehabilitation has been shown to be fundamental to alleviate some of the deficits, but it is not always customized to the specific profile of each patient. More critically, patients typically do not have rehabilitation while they are in the waiting list or after discharge. One way to address these limitations is using interactive technologies specifically designed for cognitive rehabilitation. Their digital nature allows the customization of parameters enabling personalization and adaptation to each patient’s profile, as well as the possibility of quantification of performance. In addition, these tools have the potential to be used at home, allowing patients to continue their rehabilitation and being monitored remotely, alleviating the burden of institutionalization for both patients and healthcare systems. However, before proposing novel technologies, it is imperative to understand current practices, needs, preferences and expectations of health professionals in this domain. For this purpose, we developed an online questionnaire that was distributed among health professionals in Portugal. 116 participants have responded, with 35% reporting having experience in the use of interactive technologies for cognitive rehabilitation. Our results show that health professionals that use these technologies mainly value ease of interaction, diversity of activities, task personalization to the patient’s cognitive profile, and adaptation based on performance. These and other insights will be used to inform the development of novel tools for cognitive rehabilitation in clinical and home settings.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PhysioVR: a novel mobile virtual reality framework for physiological computing

Virtual Reality (VR) is morphing into a ubiquitous technology by leveraging of smartphones and screenless cases in order to provide highly immersive experiences at a low price point. The result of this shift in paradigm is now known as mobile VR (mVR). Although mVR offers numerous advantages over conventional immersive VR methods, one of the biggest limitations is related with the interaction pathways available for the mVR experiences. Using physiological computing principles, we created the PhysioVR framework, an Open-Source software tool developed to facilitate the integration of physiological signals measured through wearable devices in mVR applications. PhysioVR includes heart rate (HR) signals from Android wearables, electroencephalography (EEG) signals from a low cost brain computer interface and electromyography (EMG) signals from a wireless armband. The physiological sensors are connected with a smartphone via Bluetooth and the PhysioVR facilitates the streaming of the data using UDP communication protocol, thus allowing a multicast transmission for a third party application such as the Unity3D game engine. Furthermore, the framework provides a bidirectional communication with the VR content allowing an external event triggering using a real-time control as well as data recording options. We developed a demo game project called EmoCat Rescue which encourage players to modulate HR levels in order to successfully complete the in-game mission. EmoCat Rescue is included in the PhysioVR project which can be freely downloaded. This framework simplifies the acquisition, streaming and recording of multiple physiological signals and parameters from wearable consumer devices providing a single and efficient interface to create novel physiologically-responsive mVR applications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparing adaptive cognitive training in virtual reality and paper-pencil in a sample of stroke patients

The growing number of people with cognitive deficits creates an urgent need for new cognitive training solutions. Paper-and-pencil tasks are still widely used for cognitive rehabilitation despite the proliferation of new computer-based methods, like VR-based simulations of ADL’s. The health professionals’ resistance in adopting new tools might be explained by the small number of validation trials. Studies have established construct validity of VR assessment tools with their paper-and-pencil versions by demonstrating significant associations with their traditional construct-driven measures. However, adaptive rehabilitation tools for intervention are mostly not equivalent to their counterpart paper-and-pencil versions, which makes it difficult to carry out comparative studies. Here we present a 12-session intervention study with 31 stroke survivors who underwent different rehabilitation protocols based on the same content and difficulty adaptation progression framework: 17 performed paper-and-pencil training with the Task Generator and 14 performed VR-based training with the Reh@City. Results have shown that both groups performed at the same level and there was not an effect of the training methodology in overall performance. However, the Reh@City enabled more intensive training, which may translate in more cognitive improvements.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reh@City v2.0: a comprehensive virtual reality cognitive training system based on personalized and adaptive simulations of activities of daily living

Cognitive impairments are among the most common age-related disabilities worldwide. Literature has shown that cognitive training using Virtual Reality (VR) systems can be a valid and effective solution for cognitive rehabilitation. Virtual environments can be easily customized to deliver very specific training by controlling the presentation of stimuli and keeping track of the user responses. Reh@City (RC) is a virtual reality simulation of a city where patients can train a variety of cognitive skills while performing simulated activities of daily living. An initial prototype of this city with four environments was clinically validated with a stroke sample, and the encouraging results motivated further iterations and improvements in the RC, in terms of its tasks, interaction with the content, and task adaptation. This paper presents the efforts of creating RC v2.0, a VR-based software system for cognitive rehabilitation that presents different cognitive training tasks that take place in 8 realistically modeled 3D environments, that are personalized to the patient clinical profile and also implements automatic difficulty adaptation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Active diagnostics of dementia in the inland region of Portugal

[EN]Background: According to Alzheimer Europe (2019), it is estimated that in 2018, there were 8,885,101 people with dementia in Europe (EU-28), with a prevalence of 1.73%. In Portugal, it is estimated that this figure is 193,516, with a prevalence of 1.88%, surpassing the European trend, since it is expected to almost double the number of cases in 2050 (346,905), reflecting the significant increase of people over 70 years and, specifically over 85. The OECD’s “Health at a Glance 2020” report indicates that Alzheimer’s and other dementia accounted for 5%of all deaths in 2017. Thus, it becomes relevant to study themagnitude of this problem also at the local level. This study aims to identify and characterize people with dementia in a region of the inland region of Portugal. It is assumed as the first stage of a more comprehensive study on the quality of life of the person with dementia and his/her family, within the framework of the NEUROQUALYFAMProject (0541_NEURO_QUALYFAM_6_E). Method: This is a cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study of people with dementia. The data, provided by health services, refer to the active diagnoses of the disease, according to the International Classification of Primary Health Care - ICPC-2 (P70 - Dementia) and do not allow to trace any of the individuals. Result: The total number of people with active diagnosis of Dementia (P70) was in 2019, around 1603 cases, with an increase of 363 cases between 2014 and 2019. The proportion of active diagnoses in the resident population was 1.13%,with higher values in women (0.80% versus 0.33% in men). Most active diagnoses (95.51%) are from people aged 65 years or older, also reflecting the results a higher proportion in the higher age groups, namely 25.02% in the 80–84-year-old group and 43.54% in the 85-year-old group. Conclusion: The identification and characterization of people with dementia, in the geographic area under study,willnowallow the development of the study of the quality of life of these people and their families so that it is possible to implement more specific and targeted strategies for this target population

" In search of light": enhancing touristic recommender services with local weather data

Many destinations’ economies strongly rely on tourism. Therefore, it is crucial to meet tourists’ expectations, so they will return to the destination. The geographical formation of certain touristic islands often leads to local climates where it can be rainy and windy on one side of the island, whereas the other part is sunny. In this paper, we present a novel use for a network of sensors, LightBeam, a mobile location-based application aiming to improve the tourists’ experience. The application focuses on providing real-time guidance for tourists seeking sunlight to maximize their holiday experience by suggesting the closest points of interest (POIs) to the user with the “best sunlight”. To achieve this, we implemented and installed a network of geospatial sensors. The data from the sensor network is combined with the current location of the users to provide recommendations. We report on the initial design and prototype of LightBeam.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Subjetividade: Migrante: A importância da transmissão na construção e consciência de si e do outro

Dissertação de Mestrado realizada apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia ClínicaTomando como referência as linhas teóricas propostas pela clínica etnopsicanítica, a transição de um país de origem para um outro (desconhecido), coloca o sujeito numa situação vulnerável capaz de provocar consequências na forma como este irá integrar a experiencia ao nível psíquico. Na tentativa de aceder a um entendimento da sua vivência de migração, enquanto sujeito psicológico, recorre-se ao Método de Narrativas de Associação Livre (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000). Realizada uma entrevista a um homem nascido em Tomé e Príncipe, onde permaneceu até aos sete anos, tendo migrado para Cabo-verde, onde nasceram os seus pais, e onde permaneceu até aos dezasseis anos, idade em que imigrou para Portugal, faz-se uma análise profunda da narrativa recolhida, norteada pelas orientações da referida metodologia. Destacam-se da análise grandes temas, a destacar: a identidade, a filiação e a transmissão psíquica, cuja ligação é evidenciada enquanto problemática central. As representações que Francisco faz dos seus vividos, em lugares e tempos diferentes, como se da mesma experiencia se tratasse, são denunciadoras da sua impossibilidade de firmar uma identidade própria, a qual, numa fase ainda muito prematura do seu desenvolvimento, encontrou obstáculos, inscritos na incorporação de conteúdos psíquicos transmitidos pela geração precedente. Perante uma visão de si e dos outros, marcada por uma confusão clara entre tempos e lugares, tornam-se evidentes as dificuldades para construir um Eu, sentido como único, caracterizadas na inexistência de uma estrutura identitária necessária para conseguir aceder à alteridade, absolutamente necessária à (re)organização psíquica perante o diferente e o desconhecido.Accordingly to the theoretical assumptions of ethnopsychiatrical clinic, the transition from one country (origin) to another (unknow), and the experience of rupture implied in this change, puts the person in a position of vulnerability affecting the way he/she psychically organizes the experience. The Free Association Narratives Method (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000) is used to access the understanding of the psychological subject within the scope of his migratory experience. We conducted a detailed analysis of the narrative produced on an interview by a man born in Tomé and Príncipe, where he remained until the age of seven. Then he has migrated to Cape Verde where his parents were born, remained there until the age of sixteen and finally immigrated to Portugal. The analysis is guided by the theoretical postulates of proposed methodology. Three main themes emerged: the subject identity, affiliation and the psychic transmission emerged as central problems closely linked as the central problem. “Francisco” representations of his life in different times and places, appear as a unique experience and reveal how is unable to develop a true sense of identity, at a very early stage of its development, encountered obstacles of psychic contents transmitted by the previous generation. Francisco’s vision and from the other(s) are marked by a clear confusion between different times and places and reveal’s the impossibility of constructing an identity of its own, a unique away, expressed as a lack of identity structure required to access alterity, necessary to (re)psychic organization to cope with the different and the unknown

A potencialidade das tecnologias, no ensino básico

O desenvolvimento tecnológico das últimas décadas originou avanços extraordinários em praticamente todas as áreas do conhecimento, facto que não esteve alheia a educação. Para a evolução destas mudanças contribui a generalização a utilização dos computadores e o acesso às redes eletrónicas, como meio de comunicação à distância. No contexto da educação, a escola é um espaço privilegiado de interação social, integrado nos demais espaços de conhecimento, incorporam a informação que é a matéria-prima e as tecnologias agir sobre a informação (Castells,2005), pois permite fazer as pontes entre conhecimentos tornar-se num novo elemento de cooperação e transformação. Nesta perspetiva, as Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (TIC`s), em Portugal, assumem uma importante dimensão pedagógica em toda a escolaridade obrigatória, de forma diversificada. Pois potenciam a organização e planificação das atividades e, são utilizadas como recurso pedagógico para os alunos e para uma sociedade dependente da tecnologia com a emergência de uma renovação pedagógica capaz de melhorar o processo de ensino e aprendizagem. O estudo que aqui se apresenta tem como principal objetivo analisar e compreender a utilização das TIC como recurso didático para o desenvolvimento de competências transversais definidos para nos alunos do 2º e 3º.º ciclos do ensino básico. Trata-se de um estudo, realizado num agrupamento de escolas, localizado na região Norte de Portugal. Inquirimos por questionário alunos (n=75). O questionário constituiu um instrumento privilegiado no processo de recolha de dados, estruturado em seis dimensões. Para o tratamento dos dados e recorremos ao programa estatístico SPSS (versão 18.0 para Windows). Os resultados foram analisados com recurso à estatística descritiva e inferencial. Os resultados revelam que a aceitação desta “ferramenta”, como fazendo parte integrante processo do ensino aprendizagem, potencia diferentes aprendizagens através de diversas vias de construção do conhecimento e assegura um percurso coerente de formação e, a aquisição de um conjunto de competências. As tecnologias já transformaram a relação tradicional professor aluno, redimensionando-a numa relação tripartida

The benefits of emotional stimuli in a virtual reality cognitive and motor rehabilitation task: assessing the impact of positive, negative and neutral stimuli with stroke patients

VR-based methods for stroke rehabilitation have mainly focused on motor rehabilitation, but there is increasing interest towards the integration of cognitive training for providing more ecologically valid solutions. However, more studies are needed, especially in the definition of which type of content should be used in the design of these tools. One possibility is the use of emotional stimuli, which are known to enhance attentional processes. According to the Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory, as people age, this emotional salience arises for positive and neutral, but not for negative stimuli. Conversely, negative stimuli can be better remembered. In this study, we investigated the impact of using emotional stimuli with positive, negative and neutral valence in a VR cognitive and motor attention task. Ten stroke patients participated in a within subjects experiment with four conditions based on the type of stimuli: abstract (control condition), positive, negative and neutral. The main task consisted of finding a target stimulus, shown for only two seconds, among fourteen neutral distractors. Eye movements were recorded with an eye-tracking system to investigate differences between conditions and in search patterns. Subsequently, a recall task took place and the patients had to identify all the target images among a valence-matched number of distractors. Our results corroborate the attention salience effect of positive and neutral stimuli in the VR task performance. Although we found no statistically significant differences between conditions in the recall task, there was a trend for recalling more negative images. This negative advantage comes at the expense of significantly more wrongly identified images/false memories for negative stimuli. Finally, we performed an analysis in which we relate performance scores with well-established cognitive assessment instruments, which supportsG the use of this approach both for assessment and rehabilitation purposes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio