Monday, January 9, 2017

Therapy Designers and Game Designers: We Should Get Together

Perspective

Gamification in Physical Therapy: More Than Using Games

Janssen J, Vershuren O, Renger WJ, Ermers J, Ketelaar M & van Ee, R

Pediatric Physical Therapy 2017;29:95-99

Link to abstract: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27984481

Objective: “By reducing the gap between therapy designers (therapists) and game designers, there is a huge potential to gain more from the potential value of participant-specific games.”To apply the attractiveness, motivation and engagement of video games to therapeutic goals, the authors propose three pathways: adding game principles to therapy (gamification), adding therapeutic tools to commercial games and selecting applied games suited to the therapeutic needs of the child.

Discussion: There are parallels between game design and therapy design. A process for bringing together game designers and therapy designers to optimize therapy is proposed.