JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The objective of rehabilitation is to recover the human body's locomotion dysfunction through physical therapy. Serious games are a supportive alternative within rehabilitation therapies; several studies have demonstrated their effectiveness on stimulation, motivation, challenge, and concentration in the context of rehabilitation. A framework describes the stages or phases to follow to implement a solution (through building blocks). However, many serious games are created without a methodology or framework, which could guide the creation process. Relevant elements, such as follow-up by health personnel or patient motivation, are omitted. And in some cases, they do not meet the rehabilitation needs of patients.

Objective:

This paper presents the proposal of a framework for the development of serious games in physical rehabilitation.

Methods:

When applying Software Engineering, a framework is developed, adopting the principle of generic structural activities: communication, planning, modeling, construction, deployment.

Results:

A framework proposal was developed for the development of serious games in physical rehabilitation. Using an iterative and incremental approach, oriented to prototypes, adaptable to changes and software engineering's structural activities.

Conclusions:

The framework proposal will provide the basis for a structured development of serious games for physical rehabilitation. It can be adapted to other types of serious games, by adding or omitting activities, such as suppressing the interface phase of data acquisition. This framework's strength lies in a separation between the development of the data acquisition device and the video game; levels advance according to the patient rehabilitation stage; feedback from the patient to have a better user experience.