JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Serious games show a lot of potential for use in movement rehabilitation, for example, after a stroke, injury to the spinal cord or limb loss. However, the diverse nature of this research leads to diversity both in the background of the researchers and in the approaches of their investigation. Our close examination and categorization of virtual training for upper limb prosthetic rehabilitation affiliated the researchers to two broad approaches (1) focusing on the game design aspects to increase engagement and muscle training and (2) concentrating on an accurate representation of prosthetic training tasks, to induce task-specific skill transfer. Previous studies indicate muscle training alone does not lead to improved prosthetic control without a transfer enabling task structure. However, literature shows an incredible surge in the number of game-based prosthetic training tools recently, focusing on the engagement without heeding the importance of transfer. This influx appears to have been strongly influenced by the availability of both soft- and hardware, specifically the launch of a commercially available acquisition device and freely available high profile game development engines. We finally share our perspective on the current trends and progress of serious games for prosthetic training.