New Center for Digital Games Research

New Resource

The Center for Digital Games Research, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, takes a wide, cross-disciplines approach to the design and play of video games and digital media in general.

Digital games, now so embedded in our culture, have a place “in helping us make healthier decisions and foster healthier lifestyles.” The Center for Digital Games Research considers how people interact with health games and how games can be improved to be more effective.

Included in center’s activities are 21 funded projects, and the publication of a health games database, which catalogues “information about hundreds of games, publications, organizations and events - all focused on the use of digital games for health and health care”.

Center for Digital Games Research www.cdgr.ucsb.edu

Database www.cdgr.ucsb.edu/db

News article www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014784/games-people-play

Therapists’ thoughts on Gaming and Social Media

Qualitative Study

Therapist’s Perceptions of Social Media and Video Game Technologies in Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Tatla, S. K., Shirzad, N., Lohse, K. R., Virji-Babul, N., Hoens, A. M., Holsti, L., Li, L. C., Miller, K. J., Lam, M. Y. & Van der Loos, H. M.

JMIR Serious Games, 2015 3 (1):e2 DOI: 10.2196/games.3401
PMID: 25759148

Full content*: games.jmir.org/2015/1/e2

Objective: The objective of (this) study was to explore therapists’ perceptions of how young people and adults with hemiplegia use gaming and social media technologies in daily life and in rehabilitation, and to identify barriers to using these technologies in rehabilitation.

Method: A purposive sample of occupational and physical therapists was gathered for two focus group sessions. Participants were guided through a semi-structured interview with open questions. The content was audio recorded and transcribed. Coding allowed themes to emerge; participants were involved in affirming the findings.

Findings: The authors identified three themes relating to social media and gaming technologies: the presence or uptake in the lives of rehabilitation clients; barriers to use in therapy, and possible benefits. Clients varied in their use of social media and gaming technologies, and therapists also made limited use of these. Barriers to use included age appropriateness, the therapists’ concern with client’s privacy, questionable transferability of skills, lack of accessibility, and “reconciling (the) therapist role within the gaming context”. Benefits included the social-emotional, rehabilitation and usability features of social media and videogaming.

Examined through the lens of Diffusion of Innovation Theory, barriers to uptake included “increased complexity, limited relative advantage, perceived lack of compatibility with values of some clients and therapists’ reconciling compatibility with their values”. Facilitators of uptake included “motivation, trialability, social connection as key benefit, and perceived compatibility with values of some clients”.

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*This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Serious Games, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://games.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

Remapping the Brain with Videogames

Review

Should we integrate video games into home-based rehabilitation therapies for cerebral palsy? Biddess, E. Future Neurology 2012;7 (5) 515-518

For full text Google: “Should we integrate video games into home-based rehabilitation therapies for cerebral palsy?”

Summary: This article reviews the effectiveness of video games on neuroplasticity. Two articles are cited, each using specialized gaming systems and showed neural changes related to specific neurological goals. You et al.(1) found “cortical reorganization following a 4 week intervention with an 8 year old child with hemiparetic CP who engaged in videogame play for 60 min durations, 5 times a week.” Goloumb et al.(2) showed “improved functional scores and altered cortical activation profiles during a grasp tasks in a study fo three adolescents with hemiplegic CP who participated in videogame play for 30 min per days, 5 days a week over a three month period.”

Other trends noted with video games used in therapeutic environments are that games that allow a latitude of movement variability typically would diminish therapeutic benefits, that games typically offer limited possibilities of movement regimes that fit with therapeutic goals, and that in-game feedback and rewards are not always sufficient to motivate the player to persist to the level of therapeutic benefits.

1. You SH, Jang SH, Kim Y, Kwon Y, Barrow I, Hallett M. Cortical reorganization induced by virtual reality therapy in a child with hemiparetic CP. Dev. Med. Child Neurol.47,628–635 (2005).
2. Golomb MR, McDonald B, Warden S et al. In-home virtual reality videogame telerehabilitation in adolescents with hemiplegic CP. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil.91,1–7 (2010).

Game attributes that best fit with rehabilitation

Review

Expose, Distract, Motivate and Measure: Virtual Reality Games for Health

Albert “Skip” Rizzo

TISE conference December 9-11, 2014 Fortaleza, Brazil

Link to full text: www.tise.cl/2010/archivos/tise2006/01.pdf

Summary: Virtual Reality games have properties that can contribute to rehabilitation. This review illustrates four characteristics that benefit rehabilitation: exposure, distraction, motivation and measurement.

Clients using virtual reality can be repeatedly exposed to simulated, relevant stimuli. Their engagement in the VR environment may provides distraction from the current situation. Play offers motivation that can be channelled into rehabilitation goals, and the system has capacity to measure movement.Full text online with illustrations and references.

Motor learning through virtual reality in cerebral palsy

A Literature Review

Massetti, T., da Silva, T. D., Ribeiro, D. C., Pinheiro Malheiros, S. R., Nicolai Re, A. H., Favero, F. M. & de Mello Monteiro, C., B.

Medical Express 2014; 1(6): 302-306 DOI: 10.5935/MedicalExpress.2014.06.04

Link to full text: www.medicalexpress.net.br/details/99/motor-learning-through-virtual-reality-in-cerebral-palsy---a-literature-review

Objective: to investigate benefits to motor skills improvement from VR in children with CP.

Process: A pubmed search resulted in 40 studies were found regarding virtual reality and cerebral palsy. Few (10) studies reference “the use of virtual reality in children with cerebral palsy in gross motor function and improvements in motor learning with skill transfer to real-life situations”. These studies were evaluated using the Pediatric Evidence Database (PEDro); 3 scored ‘good’ or better, limited largely by small sample sizes.

Outcome: “Improvements in performance were specific to the practice environment; there was no transfer of learning”.

Annual Guide for Gamers with Disabilities

Ablegamers Holiday Gift Guide

Follow the link below to the AbleGamers’ holiday gift guide. It recommends the top 5 accessibility products, the top 6 games and games to avoid.

www.ablegamers.com/ablegamers-news/ablegamers-holiday-gift-guide-for-gamers-with-disabilities

Case-Based Reasoning for Active Video Games

Tool development

Helping Therapists Make Evidence-Based Decisions about Commercial Motion Gaming
Putnam, C. & Cheng, J.
Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility; 10/2013, published in SIGACCESS Newsletter 107, September, 2013

Link to Abstract: www.researchgate.net/publication/260587395_Motion-games_in_brain_injury_rehabilitation_an_in-situ_multi-method_study_of_inpatient_care

Objective: The authors identified an information gap where "therapists did not have access to information (games that best met their therapeutic goals) that would help them make evidence-based decisions about which games to use in therapies."

Method: Interviews and observation revealed that therapists are frustrated with finding relevant information about newer games.

Outcome: Authors created a case-based reasoning tool which includes patient variables, session goals, game attributes, subjective and objective outcome measures. Development of this tool should help therapists better employ active video games in therapies.