Enterprise Ireland 'Big Ideas' Patrick Golden Vitfiz

Vitfiz -- Therapeutic Exergaming

Have you ever gone to a Physiotherapist or Athletic Trainer and given exercises to do before your next visit? If so, did you do them as often as you were supposed to? Did you have difficulty remembering the precise details of how to do the exercises when you tried to do them? If the answer to any of the above is YES then you are not alone. Researchers have discovered that 70% of patients are not fully compliant with exercise therapy during rehabilitation -- mainly due to problems with motivation and remembering how to do the exercises properly. This leads to reduced effectiveness of care with resultant increases in healthcare costs and time lost from work.

VITFIZ is a new technology that aims to reduce this problem for healthcare professionals and patients alike by combining advances in mobile telephone and sensor technology with expertise in exercise science and biofeedback. It involves interaction between the performance of rehabilitation exercises and biofeedback provided through the medium of a computer game, a genre known as Therapeutic Exergaming. This is an emerging market that has been expanding rapidly in recent years. It is estimated that the current market value of this niche in the US, UK and Ireland would be circa €2.4 billion per annum.

VITFIZ comprises a significant advance on other exergaming offerings as it provides a platform for tailoring feedback to the needs of individual clients and uses the motion sensing capability of the user's smartphone to interact with the feedback environment, thus removing the requirement for purchase or rental of additional hardware on the part of therapist or patient.

Presenter: Patrick Golden, CLARITY CENTRE, University College Dublin
Collaborators: Dr Brian Caulfield, CLARITY Centre, University College Dublin
Prof Barry Smyth, CLARITY Centre, University College Dublin

Category:

Science & Technology

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