A serious computer game to assist Tai Chi training for the elderly

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a computer-based serious game to enable older individuals to practice Tai Chi at home on their own. The player plays the game by imitating Tai Chi movements presented by a virtual instructor on the screen. The proposed system is decomposed into two modules. The first module is the game design, i.e., the process of recording an instructor training Tai Chi. Acquired data are used to create gesture templates and a virtual instructor. The second module is the game play in which the player attempts to mimic the virtual instructor. Gestures are measured in real-time and then compared with the prerecorded Tai Chi gesture template corresponding to the displayed movement. Visual feedback indicates how well the player imitated the instructor. The proposed system is not designed to classify gestures but to evaluate the similarity of a given gesture with a gesture template. The Longest Common Sub-Sequence (LCSS) method is applied to compute such similarity. The proposed approach (1) facilitates the design of assessment tools in which the user has to follow a sequence of predefined movements and (2) applicable to other domains, such as telerehabilitation.