Multimodal Cueing in Gamified Physiotherapy: A Preliminary Study

Advances in mobile devices have made possible the adherence to healthy lifestyles and workout routines with less supervision from a professional, for example, a strength trainer or physiotherapist. Mobile health games in particular can help individuals with chronic conditions and disabilities who require physiotherapy and rehabilitation to stay motivated and encouraged during their physiotherapy process. We developed a mobile game application, Neblina Wrist Physio that works with a wearable motion sensor to look at the effect of multimodal cueing, i.e. using stimuli to facilitate movement initiation and continuation, mechanisms on wrist physiotherapy exercises. The results of our study showed that cueing in a gamified physiotherapy environment is an effective means of keeping users entertained and engaged. At the same time, the impact of cueing modalities in improving the quality of gamified physiotherapy exercises appears to be affected by the difficulty of the exercise and the specific game.