Electronic Healthcare. Second International ICST Conference, eHealth 2009, Istanbul, Turkey, September 23-15, 2009, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

Open Source Virtual Worlds and Low Cost Sensors for Physical Rehab of Patients with Chronic Diseases

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-11745-9_12,
        author={Salvador Romero and Luis Fernandez-Luque and Jos\^{e} Sevillano and Lars Vognild},
        title={Open Source Virtual Worlds and Low Cost Sensors for Physical Rehab of Patients with Chronic Diseases},
        proceedings={Electronic Healthcare. Second International ICST Conference, eHealth 2009, Istanbul, Turkey, September 23-15, 2009, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={E-HEALTH},
        year={2012},
        month={5},
        keywords={Tele-rehabilitation Virtual Worlds Open Source Low-Cost},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-642-11745-9_12}
    }
    
  • Salvador Romero
    Luis Fernandez-Luque
    José Sevillano
    Lars Vognild
    Year: 2012
    Open Source Virtual Worlds and Low Cost Sensors for Physical Rehab of Patients with Chronic Diseases
    E-HEALTH
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-11745-9_12
Salvador Romero, Luis Fernandez-Luque1,*, José Sevillano2, Lars Vognild1,*
  • 1: Northern Research Institute
  • 2: University of Sevilla
*Contact email: luis.luque@norut.no, lars.vognild@norut.no

Abstract

For patients with chronic diseases, exercise is a key part of rehab to deal better with their illness. Some of them do rehabilitation at home with telemedicine systems. However, keeping to their exercising program is challenging and many abandon the rehabilitation. We postulate that information technologies for socializing and serious games can encourage patients to keep doing physical exercise and rehab. In this paper we present Virtual Valley, a low cost telemedicine system for home exercising, based on open source virtual worlds and utilizing popular low cost motion controllers (e.g. Wii Remote) and medical sensors. Virtual Valley allows patient to socialize, learn, and play group based serious games while exercising.