Research has shown that compliance to interactive training in tasks such as movement therapy following injuries, stroke and major surgeries is sub-optimal. Efforts are being made to make the rehabilitation process a more engaging experience to motivate patients to adhere to therapy. The use of games and virtual reality has gained interest among researchers and clinicians as it may cost less than clinical therapy and can be made portable for use at home. However, without the encouragement of a physical therapist, motivating patients may be difficult. In this paper, we propose a virtual slot machine game and hypothesize that it can potentially make individuals increase time devoted to therapy. Since this game requires minimal skill for gameplay, patients can simply reach a target to trigger a reel spin. We propose that the anticipation and uncertainty of this game will capture patients’ interest and motivate them to play longer. This preliminary study with able-bodied individuals may be used to tune the testing designs for future efforts on patient populations that need to repetitively practice arm movements.

Keywords - rehabilitation, exercises, games, slot machines

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Naik, A., HuynhNguyen, H., Jones, S., Patton, J., Kenyon, R., Virtual Slots Game for Rehabilitation Exercises, Proceedings of the IEEE 2019 Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM), New Haven, CT, June 18th, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1109/GEM.2019.8811546