Exergaming - New age gaming for health, rehabilitation and education

Abstract

The urban lifestyle is hectic and information rich. A busy work pace and digital entertainment take time away from real world physical exercise, while lifestyle diseases increase globally. Exergaming, which is a term combining "exercise" and "gaming", has a lot of potential to provide various new service business opportunities for the entertainment and recreation as well as the healthcare sectors. In this paper, I review some new exergaming prototypes. Also I present current rehabilitation schemes, especially the PS3 based rehabilitation of children with hemiplegia. The Nintendo Wii is also an emerging contender in the health field. I discuss Wii based balance and wrist therapies that are becoming widespread. The Wii fit and Wii sports are becoming a hit among health conscious people. Also researchers from the the University of Ulster have made some new webgames for upper limb rehabilitation. The use of PSPs in English lab classes is also shown. Together the gaming industry contributes a lot today. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.