wE-move - An exergaming platform for rehabilitation and movement exercises for children

About

With our more sedentary lifestyle, maintaining physical fitness is a major challenge in the twenty-first century. Even when programs are started, compliance to the program and persistence over time are key issues in achieving the desired results – such as weight loss or restoring function in revalidation settings.

The wE-MOVE project aims to address these issues of persistence by combining state of art motion and body detection technology with established video game principles. The end-result will be a proof-of-concept for an active exercise game that facilitates program persistence and achieves better results than more traditional methods.

This new exergame will initially target two distinct use-cases:

• Gross motor movement (i.e. application to obese children)
• Fine motor skills (i.e. specific revalidation tasks for impaired children)

In this project, iMinds-MICT will gain insight into:

• The application of motion/body detection technology (3D camera’s, pressure sensitive soles)
• The gamification of a repetitive/non-motivating task such as revalidation exercise to achieve better results in a playful manner.
• Processes involved in the persistence and cessation of both exercise programs and videogames.

Duration of the project

The project runs from 01/01/2015 – 31/12/2016.

Staff involved

• Prof. dr. Jan van Looy
• dr. Antonius J. van Rooij (Tony)

Financed by

• iMinds