A serious game for cognitive and fine motor skill rehabilitation: a qualitative evaluation.

Abstract

Cognition and upper motor skills are some of the most common areas in rehabilitation of various pathologies; cognitive recovery can be supported on various areas as inhibition and object recognition, while motor skills require repetitive exercises, these make them the perfect target to develop serious games for catching the attention of patients and make easier for them to complete different tasks. This paper will show a qualitative usability evaluation of a serious game, developed for rehabilitation of cognition and fine motor skills. The game was built according to State-of-the-art determined design patterns as color, border definition and sound feedback, meanwhile the dynamics were chosen to match cognitive inhibition and object recognition recovery, implementing repetitive grasp and release tasks to enhanced motor abilities. At the end a usability study, based on Likert scale to estimate user’s opinion was carried out through a survey and applied to 21 physiotherapy and medicine students; concluding a good grade of usability, usefulness, playability and applicability of the application.