Optimising engagement for stroke rehabilitation using serious games

Effective stroke rehabilitation must be early, intensiveand repetitive, which can lead to problems withpatient motivation and engagement. The design of videogames, often associated with good user engagement, mayoffer insights into how more effective systems for stroke rehabilitationcan be developed. In this paper we identify gamedesign principles for upper limb stroke rehabilitation andpresent several games developed using these principles. Thegames use low-cost video-capture technology which maymake them suitable for deployment at home. Results fromevaluating the games with both healthy subjects and peoplewith stroke in their home are encouraging.