Opportunities in game-based stroke rehabilitation

Stroke is the most common cause of long-term disability of adults in developed countries. Continuous participation in rehabilitation can alleviate some of its consequences, and support recover of stroke patients. However, physical rehabilitation requires commitment to tedious exercises routines over lengthy periods of time, which often causes patients to drop out of therapy routines. In this context, game-based stroke rehabilitation has the potential to address two important barriers: accessibility of rehabilitation, and patient motivation. This paper provides a summary of design efforts in human-computer interaction (HCI) and games research to support stroke rehabilitation. Based on our review, we discuss challenges and opportunities in game-based stroke rehabilitation and outline areas for future work that need to be addressed to offer engaging game-based stroke rehabilitation.