Gamification of Upper Limb Tangible-Wearable Rehabilitation Devices

The researchers have focused on device-aided rehabilitation systems for many years. Wearable, tangible devices, and virtual reality technologies have been used to rehabilitate impaired patients in rehabilitation centers since repetitive exercises induce neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the capability of a neural network system to new situations or environmental and behavioral changes. During this adaptation stage, the brain forms new neural connections that cut off old injured ones, and it reorganizes itself. This lifelong process continues throughout a person’s life. The brain reshapes and rewires itself by synaptic pruning, deleting the neural connections that are no longer necessary and make the useful connections stronger. Some research studies have proved that intensive therapy sessions at hospital and rehabilitation centers improve the motor skills of patients. However, device-aided therapies applied in centers have expensive, time, and labor consuming issues. Additionally, some patients find repetitive exercises hard and boring. For this reason, home-based and gamified rehabilitation tools, devices, and robots have been becoming more attractive. Starting to use upper limb partially or completely is one of the most important issues makes the daily and business life of patients more comfortable. Games integrated to home-based, tangible-wearable rehabilitation devices designed for upper limb impairments, especially after stroke have been started to be used for motivating the patients to continue rehabilitation exercises. The design and manufacturing of wearable and tangible, game-based equipment is a subject of a multidisciplinary study and requires mainly engineering, medical, and education sciences. The purpose of this study is conducting a literature review to provide foundation knowledge on the topic and a picture about the research problem being studied clarifying what has been done until now and what is needed to be done.