A systematic review of serious games used for rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson’s disease

• Published in: Research on biomedical engineering Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 849 - 865
• Main Authors: de Oliveira, Luciene C., Mendes, Luanne Cardoso, de Lopes, Renato A., Carneiro, José A. S., Cardoso, Alexandre, Júnior, Edgard A. L., de Oliveira Andrade, Adriano
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-12-2021
• Subjects: Biomaterials; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology; Engineering; Review; Rehabilitation; Serious game; Parkinson’s disease; Virtual reality; Human–computer interaction
• ISSN: 2446-4732; 2446-4740
• DOI: 10.1007/s42600-021-00162-3

Purpose
This study consists of a systematic review that aims to identify and evaluate the scenario of the use of serious games in the rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson’s disease.
Methods
Web searches were conducted on Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Bireme, ScienceDirect, IEEE Digital Library, ACM Digital Library, and Google Scholar databases, using the keywords “serious game” and “Parkinson”. The following variables were evaluated: type of game, interface, device, protocol used for rehabilitation, method used for assessing the effectiveness of the game, symptoms treated, and application in real patients. A total of 169 studies were identified and 38 were selected.
Results
The majority of studies propose the development of exergames, used virtual reality as the interface technology, used Leap Motion and Microsoft Kinect to capture body movements, included a doctor or therapist to accompany the serious games development, used more than one tool to evaluate the game and patient outcomes, treated bradykinesia and gait impairments, and took into account experiments with patients.
Conclusion
The results suggest that it is important that the solutions developed have high methodological rigor and that they extend the instrument to a clinical practice. Serious games for individuals with Parkinson’s disease must be customizable, simple, and smart.
Graphical abstract