Design of tangible games for children undergoing occupational and physical therapy

Abstract

Games can offer an entertaining alternative to repetitive tasks. In this paper, we propose the use of tangible interactive games for the repetitive training of upper limbs in the therapy of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). We obtained promising results. The total of four created games succeeded in triggering all the to-be-trained movements properly and in a motivating and entertaining way. A physical quiz game was especially successful as children kept on playing the game making the proper movements without additional encouragement or instructions of the therapists or researchers. These results indicate that in this kind of occupational or physical therapy, there is additional value in using tangible interactive games. Furthermore, the research shows the importance of including the therapists in the design of games and we report on several ways to achieve that. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.