Keywords

1 Introduction

Information technology, IT, is a tool with the potential to improve the quality of life of people, currently, it is possible to use tools in combination with IT, such as Virtual Reality, (RV), and Augmented Reality, (RA), combined and using different bio-sensors to know the user experience and to improve the results. The objective of this review is to show the actual state of related works that intended to address some of the physical rehabilitation treatments using at DM2 diseases, and that are supported using Virtual and Augmented reality tools.

There are a number of successful examples on the use of virtual reality technology [1], to prevent and empower people on the consequences of this terrible disease. These examples include prototypes to teach healthy food habits [3, 4] to perform physical activity [5] and some special cases using exergames [2], mainly in diabetic patients of a single community. Although the causes of this effect are not yet completely determined, it is usually associated with poor disease control, adverse health outcomes and quality of life impairment [3, 4]. This gives rise to the search of the most relevant literature that will serve as a basis for proposed model of use of VR in prevention of the damages caused by DM2.

2 Method

A literature research criteria process is designed, it relies on five steps, Fig. 1, which one includes elements that integrate the research involved areas:

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Model based on related areas

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  1. Step 1

    First, the areas of knowledge related to the research objective are identified, which are: Virtual Reality for health, Studies on Diabetes using information technology that includes VR and AR, also involving videogames, Studies about protocols and instruments used in health tests for medical research.

This in turn is subdivided into virtual reality applied in chronic degenerative disease treatments and works dedicated to physical and emotional rehabilitation related with Diabetes cases. Regarding the area of diabetes studies, it is subdivided into literature focused on the prevalence of this condition, separating the literature of youth population from the adult ones.

  1. Step 2

    A systematic search criteria is designed, based on the PICO protocol, [6], for being this focused on health research, which consists of the combination of controlled terminology and texts that express the concepts of games, exercise, physical effects of diabetes DM2 and prevalence. A separate search criteria is applied for health test area, this is based on terminology that includes mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain, discomfort, depression and anxiety.

This criteria represents each of the parties in relation to the patient, the intervention and the comparison.

  1. Step 3

    Inclusion and exclusion search criteria is designed based on relevant studies of the last 10 years according the next parameters:

    1. a-

      The study population must be less than 60 years old.

    2. b-

      The exposed studies must have previous and subsequent results.

    3. c-

      Virtual Reality studies should contain some of the following tests: physical activities, weight care and cases of stress and depression. Also studies that use eye tracking tools, are considered.

    4. d-

      English and Spanish literature are considering, excluding articles in review and re-sums in process.

    5. e-

      The VR and AR tools used must include Kinect. Wii, Oculus rift, leap motion and gloves, mainly.

    6. f-

      The computer hardware used includes lightweight mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets.

    7. f-

      Studies that relate to know the patient health before a tests, and after test must present examples results, excluding those applied for no chronical diseases.

    8. g-

      Studies on the economic impact caused by diabetes in México and Spain, excluding those with more than 6 years.

  2. Step 4

    The criteria to select a search instrument includes only electronical databases. These databases are used to find abstracts, full-text articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers and government documents related.

The search is carried out at the selected electronic media: SCOPUS and WOS are used to find scientific journals related with virtual and augmented reality as multidisciplinary topics. WebSpirs-medline, OVID and PUBMED for medical topics.

Search of public journals of the year in which this research begins, only published in Mexico and Spain are also included at this step.

The Mendeley, appointment repository, is used as a reference manager, to organize the search findings and to discover the latest related research.

  1. Step 5

    A selection of results is done, emphasizing the title name first, to proceed with an analysis of their content and the presented results. Here, what is relevant to the locations of Spain and Mexico is highlighted. Findings from international organizations are used to compare the selected population with the worldwide situation. After the readings is done, the literature that don’t represent enough relation, is discriminated.

After completing the stages, it is suggested to carry out the searches again, in case of not finding enough literature from any of the study areas.

3 Research Analysis

After the search were done, the selected articles were analyzing, by area, to obtain the information relevant to be presented at the below Table 1.

Table 1. Analysis report table
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That will be used to support the Model proposal in a VR game research, to prevent some physical effects on joints caused by DM2.

4 Results

From the analysis of information related to the used technologies, it can be assumed that what has been found provides a basis for the justification of the uses of VR and AR tools, to prevent some physical impacts of diabetes. Despite a high prevalence of the use of games in rehabilitation, it can be inferred from the selected readings the lack of activities to prevent the physical effects caused by DM2 on the joints.

It is observed that the topic video games is being used to address health situations and social effects.

The use of videogames controllers applied to physical activities, appears more frequently in recent works. Immersive games for health rehabilitation are funded just in last two years.

The use of mobile devices is present as a game controller.

Regarding medical test for health, two instruments already validated were found. It is decided to select the one that it can be applied in México and Spain.

The results found about national spending due to DM2, reflect the increase in recent years, however, they do not show evidence of the use of technology in prevention programs.

5 Conclusion and Next Works

The advancement in this research allows us to evaluate the acceptability of the game interactions proposal and to continue to design the usability test and the patient health instrument to be applied before using the game.

The implications of the results permit the possibility of new ways to support the rehabilitation using mixed reality concept. Also, the benefit of using validated instruments for health tests is reflected on the time to complete this research.

This results leads to the formulation of the next activities to build the proposal model.