Designing engaging, playable games for rehabilitation

Abstract

Stroke is a leading cause of severe physical disability and can result in of a range of impairments, including loss of balance, attention and concentration deficiencies, pain, weakness and paralysis. This paper reports on the design of serious games for upper limb rehabilitation following stroke. In particular, we focus on identifying principles of video game design which are important in the context of rehabilitation and show how these principles can be implemented. We also report on an evaluation of the games for playability, usability and engagement. 1.