Therapeutic Gaming in Context: Observing Game Use for Brain Injury Rehabilitation

Abstract

Video games are often used in brain injury (BI) therapy sessions to help motivate patients to engage in rehabilitation activities. However, very little is known about contexts of game use in real-world rehabilitation settings. In this paper, we explore contexts of commercial game use in BI therapy through observation of inpatient therapy sessions. Based on a systematic analysis of the observation recordings, we found that (1) only 30% of session time was used for gameplay; (2) therapists needed to provide various kinds of cognitive and physical patient support during the play sessions; and (3) therapists adopted multiple strategies to reinforce the therapeutic values of the games. This study is helping us create decision and information sharing tools to support the use and creation of games for BI rehabilitation.