Project Portugal 2030

Summary

This project addresses three main objectives: 1) Requirement analysis involving clinicians, therapists, and survivors to define objectives in terms of movements and game design. Identification and characterization of relevant aspects that need to be taken into consideration when proposing an integrated approach for cost-effective rehabilitation. Selection of games and movements to perform customized according to the capabilities with the help of specialized rehabilitation doctors (Task 2). 2) Definition of architecture and HW/SW options for adaptation and/or development of prototype VR serious games focused on the upper limb rehabilitation of post stroke survivors. Games will involve monitoring of the patient’s movements to get feedback or customize the games according to necessities. Body motion capture of body movements and extractions of gesture information (Task 3). In this task, the relevant aspects that need to be taken into consideration when proposing an integrated approach for cost-effective rehabilitation will be identified in order to propose as guidelines for the design, implementation and evaluation of prototypes for upper-limb rehabilitation. This step will benefit form previous work already developed since 2018 in the context of master thesis toward the development and validation of serious games for upper limb rehabilitation. 3) Assessment of the usability of the system and its inclusion in a stroke survivors program monitored by clinicians and therapists. Iterative testing and further-development of the prototypes to ensure their acceptance and use by stroke survivors. Customize and adapt the serious games to individual limitations and preferences to increase motivation and adhesion. The project will also investigate and define other measures besides movement quantification to evaluate the impact in quality of life of patients (task 4). Another output of the project is expected to be a serious game ready for use as a pilot telerehabilitation system to be installed and used at home. By embracing all these challenges, we expect that in the end we can deliver serious games for chronic stroke survivors that will provide significant benefits for the patients from the clinical point of view.