Citation

Pérez VZ, Yepes JC, Vargas JF, Franco JC, Escobar NI, Betancur L, Sánchez J, Betancur MJ. Sensors (Basel) 2022; 22(15): 5602.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/s22155602

PMID

35898105

Abstract

Landmine victims require an engaging and immersive rehabilitation process to maintain motivation and therapeutic adherence, such as virtual reality games. This paper proposes a virtual reality exercise game called Exogames, which works with Nukawa, a lower limb rehabilitation robot (LLRR). Together, they constitute the general Kina system. The design and development process of Exogames is reported, as well as the evaluation of its potential for physical and emotional rehabilitation. In an initial survey designed ad-hoc, 13 health professionals evaluated compliance with various requirements. They agreed that Exogames would help the user focus on rehabilitation by providing motivation; 92.3% said that the user will feel safe in the virtual world, 66.7% of them agreed or totally agreed that it presents characteristics that may enhance the physical rehabilitation of lower limbs for amputees, 83.3% stated that it would promote the welfare of landmine victims, and 76.9% responded that the graphical interface and data report are useful for real-time assessment, and would be helpful for four interventional areas in all rehabilitation stages. In a second evaluation, using standardized surveys, five physical therapists and one lower limb amputee tried the Kina system as users. They filled out the System Usability Scale (SUS), the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES), and the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ). The usability of the Kina system overall score was 69 (66, 79) out of 100, suggesting an acceptable though improvable usability. The overall PACES score of 110 (108, 112) out of 126 suggests that users enjoyed the game well. Finally, users indicated a positive effect with a good sense of immersion and smooth of gameplay during the tests, as indicated by the GEQ results. In summary, the evaluations showed that Exogames has the potential to be used as a virtual reality game for the physical and emotional rehabilitation of landmine victims.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; rehabilitation; *Amputees; *Physical Therapists; *Video Games; *Virtual Reality; landmines; therapy; User-Computer Interface; virtual reality game