Serious games for Parkinson’s Disease management as implemented in PROPHETIC platform

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the serious games, integrated into PROPHETIC which is an innovating personal healthcare service for a holistic remote management of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. The main objective of the three developed serious games is to allow health professionals to remotely monitor and appraise the overall physical status of their patients. The significant benefits for the patients, making use of this platform, is the improvement of their engagement, empowerment and, consequently, the provision of education about their condition and its management. The design of the serious games was based on the clinical needs derived from the literature and their primary target is to assess and record specific physical capabilities of the patient. All the games scores and the recorded parameters are gathered and also presented to the clinicians, offering them a precise overview of the patient’s motor status and the possibility to modify the therapeutic plan, if required.

Research on the functional game industry expandable based on VR realistic technology

“…The upgrading of related expansion industries is driven by strengthening the high technology transformation efforts of the functional game industry [16]. The high growth of the game industry itself cannot bring about substantial adjustment of industrial structure and structural upgrading of related expansion industries, but only when the industry has great industrial correlation and can produce integration, penetration and diffusion effects through correlation with other industries, the game industry has high structural growth effects.…”

RehaBEElitation: the architecture and organization of a serious game to evaluate motor signs in Parkinson’s disease

“…SG are digital games developed to entertain players and also to achieve an additional goal, such as acquiring learning or improving the users’ health ( Dörner et al, 2016 ; Ritterfeld, Cody & Vorderer, 2009 ). Because exercises through games are perceived by the individuals as entertainment rather than therapy, these instruments promote more motivation to patients and reinforce adherence to the therapeutic process, contributing to the maintenance and/or improvement of the quality of life of the individuals ( Tarousi et al, 2021 ). In addition to allowing movement training for motor rehabilitation purposes, which is the most commonly found application in the literature for SG ( de Oliveira et al, 2021 ), patient monitoring and motor symptom assessment of a wide range of diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), can be performed using SG ( Wilkinson et al, 2018 ).…”

“…PD is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects approximately 2% of the population over 60 years old ( Singh & Ganley, 2021 ) and is characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons, which promote the appearance of motor symptoms, such as bradykinesia and tremor ( Balestrino & Schapira, 2020 ). Due to the variety and severity of the symptoms of this disease, the importance of implementing technological resources such as SG as a valuable tool for clinical assessment and patient-centered monitoring is highlighted ( de Oliveira et al, 2021 ; Tarousi et al, 2021 ). When used for clinical assessments, SG allows health professionals to provide more personalized follow-up to patients while also assisting them in disease monitoring ( Tarousi et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Due to the variety and severity of the symptoms of this disease, the importance of implementing technological resources such as SG as a valuable tool for clinical assessment and patient-centered monitoring is highlighted ( de Oliveira et al, 2021 ; Tarousi et al, 2021 ). When used for clinical assessments, SG allows health professionals to provide more personalized follow-up to patients while also assisting them in disease monitoring ( Tarousi et al, 2021 ).…”

“… Rabelo et al (2017) discriminated groups of PD patients from healthy elderly by an objective assessment of bradykinesia using inertial sensors. However, objectively assessing such symptoms using SG may be an efficient and promising alternative, due to the advantages provided by these instruments ( Dias et al, 2016 ; Tarousi et al, 2021 ).…”