Analysis, Design and Implementation of a Serious Game in the Field of Bone Fractures Rehabilitation for Arm Injuries

Abstract

Nearly every person has a friend, or a relative, who has broken their arm. In most cases, modern medicine is able to successfully treat these injuries. However,lacking motivation of the patient in observing to his therapy is a major factor for lacking success of physiotherapeutic therapy.An interesting way to to get to a solution for this problem is the creation of a Serious Game. Their basic idea is to achieve a pedagogical or physical development for the user by exploiting the recreational character of a game. Therefore, in this work, a Serious Game prototype will be conceptualised and implemented in physiotherapeutic rehabilitation for bone fractures in the arm area. The conceptualised, implemented and tested Serious Game of this work is a desktop application that is controlled through a mobile phone which is connected to a desktop or a laptop via a USB-C cable.The Serious Game was developed in three iteration rounds by incorporating the expertise of physiotherapists experienced in arm-bone fracture rehabilitation. After the implementation process, the implemented prototype is tested by a user group. As a further tool to assess the effectiveness of the Serious Game a requirements analysis was executed, wherein the planning step of the Serious Game the requirements are defined and their fulfilment was analysed in the evaluation chapter of this work. Thus, it was researched how a decent prototype in the field of Serious Gaming for the rehabilitation of patients with a partial or complete break in the continuity of bones in the arm needs to be designed and implemented. Arm bone fractures and rehabilitation therapy are medical topics, whereas game design and implementation belong to information technology.All in all, it can be said that this work is a classic example in the field of Medical Informatics.