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A systematic review of serious games used for rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson’s disease

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Abstract

Purpose

This study consists of a systematic review that aims to identify and evaluate the scenario of the use of serious games in the rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

Methods

Web searches were conducted on Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Bireme, ScienceDirect, IEEE Digital Library, ACM Digital Library, and Google Scholar databases, using the keywords “serious game” and “Parkinson”. The following variables were evaluated: type of game, interface, device, protocol used for rehabilitation, method used for assessing the effectiveness of the game, symptoms treated, and application in real patients. A total of 169 studies were identified and 38 were selected.

Results

The majority of studies propose the development of exergames, used virtual reality as the interface technology, used Leap Motion and Microsoft Kinect to capture body movements, included a doctor or therapist to accompany the serious games development, used more than one tool to evaluate the game and patient outcomes, treated bradykinesia and gait impairments, and took into account experiments with patients.

Conclusion

The results suggest that it is important that the solutions developed have high methodological rigor and that they extend the instrument to a clinical practice. Serious games for individuals with Parkinson’s disease must be customizable, simple, and smart.

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Funding

The present study was carried out with the support the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Coordination of Improvement of Higher-Level Personnel (CAPES—Program CAPES/DFATD-88887.159028/2017–00, Program CAPES/COFECUB-88881.370894/2019–01), Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG -APQ-00942–642 17). A. O. Andrade is a Fellow of CNPq (305223/2014–3 and 304818/2018–6).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Graphics Laboratory, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Brazil

    Luciene C. de Oliveira, Renato A. de Lopes, José A. S. Carneiro, Alexandre Cardoso & Edgard A. L. Júnior

  2. Centre for Innovation and Technology Assessment in Health (NIATS), Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Uberlândia, Avenue João Naves de Ávila, Uberlândia, 2121, Brazil

    Luanne Cardoso Mendes & Adriano de Oliveira Andrade

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  1. Luciene C. de Oliveira
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  2. Luanne Cardoso Mendes
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  3. Renato A. de Lopes
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Contributions

Luciene C. de Oliveira: Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft preparation. Luanne C. Mendes: Methodology; investigation; writing, original draft preparation; writing, reviewing and editing. Renato de A. Lopes: Methodology, investigation, and writing—original draft preparation. José A. S. Carneiro: Writing—reviewing and editing. Alexandre Cardoso: Conceptualization. Edgard A. L. Júnior: Conceptualization, writing—reviewing and editing. Adriano de O. Andrade: PCA analysis in R. Writing—reviewing and editing. Supervision of Luciene C. de Oliveira and Luanne C. Mendes.

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Correspondence to Luanne Cardoso Mendes.

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de Oliveira, L.C., Mendes, L.C., de Lopes, R.A. et al. A systematic review of serious games used for rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Res. Biomed. Eng. 37, 849–865 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42600-021-00162-3

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