Home-based Lower Limb Immersive Serious Game for Phantom Pain Management

With recent advances in mixed reality technology, Head Mounted Devices (HMDs) have become a preferred option for immersive gaming at home. Immersive games using HMD have been applied for serious purposes, such as improving motivation for performing rehabilitation activities at home. Mr.MAPP is a virtual mirror therapy system designed for amputees with phantom limb pain. In this work, we first investigate the Mr.MAPP system through a clinical patient study and further improve the system design based on the uncovered insight. In addition, to allow users to experience mixed reality in the first-person perspective using their realistic body reconstruction, we prototype a system to aggregate the body’s texture in realtime. Through simulation using the reconstruction system, we created an optimal camera setup guideline for amputees’ in-home setup. Lastly, a Home-based Lower Limb Immersive Exergame System (HILLES) is developed to address challenges such as system setup, safety, and game engagement for in-home usage. A stomping game using the system is developed for an exploratory user study to evaluate the system and the proposed enhancements. The discovered insight could be helpful for future lower limb exergame design.