WuppDi! – Supporting Physiotherapy of Parkinson ́s Disease Patients via Motion-based Gaming

Abstract

The Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with a range of symptoms such as slowness, rigidity, resting tremor (trembling), and an impairment of postural balance leading to disturbance of gait and falling. Continuous exercises are an effective strategy to maintain the patient’s movement abilities, slowing down the progression of the disease. Self-directed exercises in addition to supervised physiotherapy sessions are not only beneficial, but necessary. This paper presents an approach to support Parkinson’s disease patients in their daily exercises using the playful context of different motionbased digital games adapted from physiotherapy.