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Purpose To identify the life domains that are most frequently reported to be affected in scoliosis patients undergoing brace treatment. Methods A search within the PubMed database was conducted and a total of 60 publications were selected. We classified the studies based on the methods used to measure patients’ quality of life (QoL) and categorized the life domains reported to be affected. Results Self-image/body configuration was the most reported affected domain of patients’ QoL, identified in 32 papers, whilst mental health/stress was the second most reported affected domain. Mental health was identified in 11 papers, and 11 papers using the BSSQ questionnaire reported medium stress amongst their participants. Vitality was the third most reported affected domain, identified in 12 papers. Conclusions Our review indicates that scoliotic adolescents treated with bracing suffer in their quality of life most from psychological burdens. To improve these patients’ life quality, more attention should be focussed on supporting their mental health.

As tangible and embodied systems are making the transition from the labs to everyday life, there is a growth in the applications related research and design work in this field. We argue that the potential of these technologies can be even further leveraged by enabling domain experts such as teachers, therapists and home owners to act as end-user developers in order to modify and create content for their tangible interactive systems. However, there are important issues that need to be addressed if we want to enable these end users to act as developers. In this paper we identify five key challenges for meta-designers in enabling end-users to develop for tangible and embodied interaction.

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Abstract. This paper presents a novel method for interactive playground design, based on traditional children's play. This method combines the rich interaction possibilities of computer games with the physical and open-ended aspects of traditional children's games. The method is explored by the development of a prototype interactive playground, which has been implemented and evaluated over two iterations.