Gamification and Coaching in Remote Monitoring and Care Platforms

Abstract

Nowadays, several e-health systems are equipped with advanced features for patients monitoring and care. Among these features, gamification and operations supporting the patients' adherence to therapeutic and care plans have been found to be quite useful and valuable. Among others, the introduction of intelligent patient coaching and the provisions of recommendations are very popular. The aim of this paper is to present specific gamification and coaching approaches that could be employed in the context of an existing eHealth system for remote monitoring and care for elders. The 'Points, Badges and Leaderboards' gamification approach was followed. Specifically, parameters related to the application usage (daily points), the physical activity (number of daily steps), the sleep quality (sleep score) and other measurements (i.e. weight) were utilized to accommodate elders needs for motivation and engagement. Regarding the coaching, motivational messages and notification for the mobile devices were selected to deliver the relative information to the elders. A prototype health information system with a corresponding mobile application was adapted to include gamification and coaching features to motivate elders in order to achieve the maximum adherence on their monitoring and care health plans. The paper presents the design issues and summarizes the technical details.