Games for Gait Rehabilitation

For my bachelor thesis I created interactive games for gait rehabilitation on a LED floor. The project was created in collaboration with LedGo, the company delivering the LED floors and the physical rehabilitation de Hoogstraat Revalidatie located in Utrecht.

My project consisted of different phase. The first phase was understanding the user and problems and possibilities of normal therapy tools. Related work was looked at and patients and therapists were observed and interviewed.

The next phase was the brainstorm phase in which I translated the problems an possibilities of the existing therapy tools into games for the LED floor. Also, regular games were used as inspiration. Feedback from the therapists gave info about the games and was integrated into ten elaborated concepts. These were again discussed with the therapists and finally integrated into three final games. Also some early prototypes on the LED floor were used to create the final games, since the technical feasibility had to be taken into account.

Finally the three games were elaborated. I created the goals of the game, including the rules, the mechanics, of the game. I created a different design for each game, a style fitting the game. All these aspects were then brought together when implementing the game in C++ and openFrameworks. In addition, an online website was created for the therapists to adapt variables of the games to the level of the patient. A tablet could easily be used by the terhapist when playing the game with the patient, without taking away the possibility to help their patients at the same time.

The final step of the research consisted of four days of user tests at de Hoogstraat Revalidatie. At least 40 patients came by to test the games, and over 30 therapists came with them or even tried out the games themselves. Overall, the patients and their therapists liked the games and saw the games as a potential therapy tool.