Development of serious game for the upper arms rehabilitation: “balance ball rhythm game” case study

Abstract

Accuracy, repeatability and activity are very critical factors for rehabilitation of hemiplegic patients. Rehabilitation exercise should be done regardless of space, time and cost. Recently, interesting functional games, which induce active participation, have gained increasing attention. In the current study, a balance ball has been developed that can contract the user muscle and help in natural joint rotation by stimulating the upper arm muscle of hemiplegic patients. Additionally, a functional game was also developed that can engage the patients with rhythm game and training contents. The balance ball can detect the upper arm motion by an acceleration sensor and offered sense of reality and immersion with buttons and haptic sensors. The game applied Fitt’s law to test accurate motion and two tutorial contents that induced their motion based on MFT. The level of difficulty can also be chosen to help intensive training for the motion with low scores from the tutorials and the patients can even do the upper arm rehabilitation exercise while listening to music.