Brain injury such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke is the major cause of long-term disabilities in many countries. The increasing rate of brain damaged victims and the heterogeneity of impairments decrease rehabilitation effectiveness and competence resulting in higher cost of rehabilitation treatment. On the other hand, traditional rehabilitation exercises are boring, thus leading patients to neglect the prescribed exercises required for recovery. Therefore, we propose game-based approach to address these problems. This paper presents a rehabilitation gaming system (RGS) for cognitive rehabilitation. The RGS is developed based on a proposed conceptual framework which has also been presented in this paper.
Acquired brain injury is one cause of long-term disability. Serious games can assist in cognitive rehabilitation. However, therapists' perception and feedback will determine game adoption. The objective of this study is to investigate therapists' intention to use serious games for cognitive rehabilitation and identify underlying factors that may affect their acceptance. The respondents are 41 therapists who evaluated a ''Ship Game'' prototype. Data were collected using survey questionnaire and interview. A seven-point Likert scale was used for items in the questionnaire ranging from (1) ''strongly disagree'' to (7) ''strongly agree''. Results indicate that the game is easy to use (Mean = 5.83), useful (Mean = 5.62), and enjoyable (Mean = 5.90). However intention to use is slightly low (Mean = 4.60). Significant factors that can affect therapists' intention to use the game were gathered from interviews. Game-based intervention should reflect therapists' needs in order to achieve various rehabilitation goals, providing suitable and meaningful training. Hence, facilities to tailor the game to the patient's ability, needs and constraints are important factors that can increase therapists' intention to use and help to deliver game experience that can motivate patients to undergo the practices needed. Moreover, therapists' supervision, database functionality and quantitative measures regarding a patient's progress also represent crucial factors. ª 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
The use of serious games in cognitive rehabilitation would be invaluable to the rehabilitation process and provide advantages that may not be available in conventional rehabilitation. Although many recent game-based interventions for cognitive rehabilitation have been reported in the literature, not much knowledge is available on the best approach to developing usable games for individuals with cognitive disabilities. Therefore, Design Science approach was adopted to find a solution to this problem. This paper explores an existing Design Science framework and methodology, which are then combined and reduced into one single framework. This paper further examines how this framework can be used as a means to develop an artefact that can be used as a guideline in developing serious games for cognitive rehabilitation. The Design Science paradigm works well for the development of serious game for cognitive rehabilitation. This paper concludes with a discussion of the research contributions.
Patients with Acquired Brain Injuries or ABI experience various cognitive deficiencies that adversely impact their daily lives, as their ability to perform everyday activities, becomes severely limited. These patients would benefit more from engaging in unconventional cognitive rehabilitation, specifically rehabilitation using Serious Games. However, it is difficult to categorize cognitive disabilities due to their heterogeneity; therefore individualized rehabilitation interventions are required. It is also challenging to design games for cognitive rehabilitation, as the complexity and production cost for these games are usually very high. There is an abundance of recent studies on cognitive rehabilitation, particularly game-based interventions. However, some studies explain how to design games that are enjoyable and usable for patients with cognitive disabilities. Hence, this study addresses this issue with a proposed framework for therapeutic game developers targeting patients with cognitive deficiencies. To this end, a prototype Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS) was developed and evaluated by therapists. A 7-point Likert scale usability questionnaire was used and the mean scores for layout/design (5.94), ease of use (5.40), easy to learn (5.76), usefulness (5.96) and satisfaction (6.1) indicate that RGS has good usability. Therapists are willing to use RGS for rehabilitation purposes. Practitioners, game developers, and patients in the healthcare field will be able to use the proposed framework as a guide and tool for designing and implementing games targeted for cognitive rehabilitation.
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