Fall-prevention exergames using balance board systems

Abstract

The prevention of falls in older adults is an issue that can only be solved with regular exercises, sometimes with the supervision of therapists. This paper presents a game framework that uses devices such as the Wii Balance Board (WBB) to replicate fall-prevention programs, such as the Otago Exercise Programme. The objective is to increase the adherence of senior users to these exercises, while increasing their autonomy by enabling them to conduct unsupervised games. Two interactive games were developed and tested using the WBB and other available devices such as smartphones. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of several metrics for exergames for the elderly and the combination of digital games with fall-prevention exercises and automatic balance measures based on Centre of Pressure (COP) tracking.