Blexer-med: A Medical Web Platform for Administrating Full Play Therapeutic Exergames

Abstract

The work presented here is part of the currently ongoing project “Blexer” (Blender Exergames), which aims at creating a complex exergaming environment for people with physical impairments. The games are thought for daily fitness exercises or rehabilitation and are based on movements captured with the Xbox 360 Kinect^® sensor. Via a middleware, the games, currently implemented in the Blender Game Engine, communicate with a web platform called “Blexer-med”, which is the working tool for the health professionals to manage the sessions of their patients. With help of the platform, clinicians can assign different games to their patients, personalize exercises by adjusting their difficulty, and obtain their performance results in real time. The advantage is that the exercises can be adapted by the therapist according to the results without the need to meet the patients, who do the exercise at their homes. This paper presents the architecture and functionalities of the web platform and its belonging database, as well as an example use case. The platform is currently tested by some volunteers suffering from muscular dystrophies, with a newly created adventure game. Although our work focuses on people with disabilities, the platform is generic and could be connected to any kind of exergames aimed at other purposes.