Abstract
Balance problem is one of the leading causes of fall in elderly. Fall in elderly results in fracture, head trauma, death or other serious consequences. Virtual reality training is a novel and potentially useful rehabilitation method. In the virtual environment, elderly receive multimodal sensory feedback and engage in task-oriented activities safely. However, existed customized systems are often expensive and were not designed on the clinical needs of elderly or therapists. There has been limited research focusing on the user friendliness of VR balance training systems. The purpose of this study is to develop a user-friendly VR balance training system for elderly, christened VirReB system.
The hypothesis of this study is the usability of the VirGReb system based on the user-centered design will be significantly better than an off-the-shelf system. In the first year of this project, user needs were identified by focus groups and ethnography study. 30 therapists joined the focus group discussion. User needs were transformed into system requirements. Results showed that elders with stroke or cerebral impairments are most often received balance therapy. Therapists thought that conventional treatment are not fun and lack of variety. Wii it based VR therapy can be fun and provide various treatment in one system. However, levels of difficulty and the game content must fit elder’s ability and their life style. We designed three games and wish to provide better user experiences for elders and therapists.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abrahamova D, Hlavacka F (2008) Age-related changes of human balance during quiet stance. Physiol Res 57(6):957–964
Afridi A, Malik AN, Ali S, Amjad I (2018) Effect of balance training in older adults using Wii fit plus. J Pak Med Assoc 68(3):480–483
Health NS (2015) Balance problems. http://nihseniorhealth.gov/balanceproblems/aboutbalanceproblems/01.html. Accessed 2015
Morrison S, Simmons R, Colberg SR, Parson HK, Vinik AI (2018) Supervised balance training and Wii fit-based exercises lower falls risk in older adults with type 2 diabetes. J Am Med Dir Assoc 19(2):185.e7–185.e13
Phillips JS, Fitzgerald J, Phillis D, Underwood A, Nunney I, Bath A (2018) Vestibular rehabilitation using video gaming in adults with dizziness: a pilot study. J Laryngol Otol 132(3):202–206
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Yen, CW., Li, PC., Yu, TY., Chen, SS., Chang, JK., Fan, SC. (2019). A User-Centered Virtual Reality Game System for Elders with Balance Problem. In: Bagnara, S., Tartaglia, R., Albolino, S., Alexander, T., Fujita, Y. (eds) Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018). IEA 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 818. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96098-2_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96098-2_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96097-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96098-2
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)