Let’s Dance: An Exergame to Lead the Way in Parkinson Rehabilitation

Abstract

Healthy Ageing represents one of the most crucial topics that our society will face in the next decades, due to the progressive demographic ageing of the population, (e.g., in Italy old-age dependency ratio is estimated to reach 59,7% by 2065). These statistics highlights the need of a new paradigm for active and healthy ageing, as well as a healthcare system able to support elderly population in age-related diseases management.

In this work we present Let’s dance, an innovative exergame that aims to provide a new way to deliver physiotherapy for mild or moderate Parkinson’s disease patients. Within the game, the patients are asked to reproduce the choreography proposed, whose dance moves are aimed toward the achievement of specific therapeutic goals (e.g., optimize motor coordination, physical endurance, etc.). The game is part of a broader integrated platform that through sensors and actuators located on a robot device in the clinical environment and on patients themselves, can track in real-time both the game performance and the clinical KPIs and determine the assessment of patient’s therapeutic progress.

In this paper we present the first prototype of Let’s dance and a use-case scenario.

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