Customising games for non-formal rehabilitation

The field of rehabilitation has increasingly adopted commercially
available games using perceptual interfaces as a means
for physically training patients. The adaptability of such systems
to match each person ’ s need and rehabilitation goal remains
problematic. This paper presents a rapid prototyping
approach for customising gaming technology using various
affordable commercial devices and open source software. We
fi rst demonstrate how a freely available game is adapted for
training disabled people through different sensors and control
modes. We then show how an open online virtual world such
as Second Life ® offers suffi cient conditions for quickly building
custom content for testing with interactive devices. When
presented with these prototyping possibilities, people from the
target groups (healthcare professionals, patients, people with
disabilities, older people, families) related such systems to
their needs and further elaborated on the use of such systems.
Our research indicates how availability of simple prototyping
platforms expands upon the possibilities for developers and
practitioners.