PhysioMate - Pervasive physical rehabilitation based on NUI and gamification

Abstract

Serious games based therapy is currently gaining a lot of interest by the healthcare community. Moreover, the use of Virtual Reality technology in rehabilitation has attracted significant interest in the physical therapy area. This paper presents PhysioMate, which is a project with the aim of developing software based on the concept of serious games for physical rehabilitation. The PhysioMate aims to encourage physical exercise in order to combat both physical and cognitive deterioration, functioning as a complement to the work of physical therapists, with and without their live supervision. Initially, the project has been focused on the rehabilitation of patients dependent on wheelchairs, whether they are victims of stroke or elderly people. Thus, we selected five essential simple movements of the upper-body for balance training and motor coordination, in which underlies the game mechanics of PhysioMate. We use the Microsoft Kinect sensor to detect and track the movements of patients.