An estimated of 630 000 individuals live with disability in Portugal, among which 27% suffer from physical impairment, requiring specific and adequate motor-rehabilitation to improve well-being and reduce recovery time. Central to effective healthcare is the principle of patient-centered care, in which the patient’s needs and preferences are considered for recovery planning. According to Ulrich’s Theory of Supportive Design, and in line with previous findings by our team, healthcare environments play an important role in improving recovery if they foster a high sense of control, more access to social support, and positive distractions. In the context of physical rehabilitation, physiotherapists emphasize the need for unobtrusive and reliable sensors of motor activity assessment in rehabilitation, and also the importance of patient’s motivation to perform the recommended exercises and the quality of execution. To meet these needs, less traditional instruments have been used, such as the case of serious games for rehabilitation, as they increase patient’s adherence and engagement. Furthermore, in serious games, patients with motor impairments can train motor skills and then transfer these abilities to the real world. Nevertheless, more research is needed to properly assess the benefits of using serious games for physical rehabilitation. In our project, we will develop physiotherapy interventions tailored to the patient’s needs and preferences. Firstly, this will be achieved by taking into consideration Ulrich’s Theory of Supportive Design. We aim to improve engagement in physiotherapy exercises by personalizing the healthcare environment in a way that it will foster a high sense of control, positive distractions or more social support depending on each user’s characteristics. Secondly, we will develop serious games using Microsoft Kinect tailored to the user’s preferences in a way that will be regarded as fun, motivating and easy to use. Physiological sensors will be coupled with Microsoft Kinect in order to extract other indicators from the patient’s performance. On a first stage, reliability tests on prototypes and usability tests of the implemented environment for physiotherapy will be carried out in collaboration with Physiotherapy Centers. Our main hypothesis is that environments fostering personalized sense of control, social support and positive distraction will be more effective (promoting physiotherapy exercises, increasing range of motion and reducing stress and pain) when they fit the user’s attributes. For this reason, a match-mismatch design study, based on user’s psychological attributes and corresponding environmental characteristics will be used in this study. (POSTER PRESENTATION)

--

Motor-Rehabilitation,Exergames,Older Adults