Parkinson's disease patient rehabilitation using gaming platforms: lessons learnt

摘要

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative movement disorderwhere motor dysfunction gradually increases as the disease progress. Inaddition to administering dopaminergic PD-specific drugs, attendingneurologists strongly recommend regular exercise combined with physiotherapy.However, because of the long-term nature of the disease, patients followingtraditional rehabilitation programs may get bored, lose interest and eventuallydrop out as a direct result of the repeatability and predictability of theprescribed exercises. Technology supported opportunities to liven up a dailyexercise schedule have appeared in the form of character-based, virtual realitygames which promote physical training in a non-linear and looser fashion andprovide an experience that varies from one game loop the next. Such"exergames", a word that results from the amalgamation of the words "exercise"and "game" challenge patients into performing movements of varying complexityin a playful and immersive virtual environment. Today's game consoles such asNintendo's Wii, Sony PlayStation Eye and Microsoft's Kinect sensor present newopportunities to infuse motivation and variety to an otherwise mundanephysiotherapy routine. In this paper we present some of these approaches,discuss their suitability for these PD patients, mainly on the basis of demandsmade on balance, agility and gesture precision, and present design principlesthat exergame platforms must comply with in order to be suitable for PDpatients.