Tradies, Technology and Therapy: Towards Designing Gameful VR Environments for Burn Rehabilitation

Burn injuries are a significant public health challenge with the known consequences and long term problems including pain, permanent scarring and psychological trauma. Current available rehabilitation equipment is rudimentary, resource-intensive and lacks a human-centered design approach. Immersive Virtual Reality technologies may provide aid in this area, with prior studies showing positive effects that this technology has on reducing patient's physical pain, psychological trauma and improving movement. This study recognises the need for customised, measurable and goal-directed rehabilitation for burn patients. By conducting two ideation design sessions with health workers (session 1), and burn survivors and their carers (session 2), this study highlights the participants' perspectives on VR for burn rehabilitation such as the importance of patient agency, heat and healthy scarring. This work contributes core themes from survivors and health professionals to the field of design and computer human interaction that could inform future iterations of VR burn rehabilitation applications.