Improving Physical Activity Through Exergames
Improving Physical Activity Through Exergames

Summary/Abstract: An important factor that positively influences people's health is regular exercise. Because of their repetitiveness, however, they can be considered boring, a fact that is discouraging for some practitioners. Serious games have been introduced as a solution to the problem of physical inactivity that is said to be partly caused by traditional video games and have become increasingly popular due to the emergence of consoles such as Nintendo Wii, Xbox One or Playstation that use gesture interaction interfaces. In this new method, traditional games are combined with user-generated moves that help achieve the goals of the game. This paper explores the use of computer games for both improving physical mobility of user and promoting a healthy life style. We describe two different type of exergames developed especially for elderly people. These games aim to motivate users to make exercise at home and does not require medical knowledge. The users will have to make a series of movements in front of a sensor, which will influence the action that an avatar will do in the scene where the game takes place. The first one is composed by two avatars: the avatar of a trainer and the user avatar. The user must reproduce the trainer movements. The user movements are mapped on his avatar and the user can see how he is performing the exercises. The second type of exergame places the user into a scene where he can make different actions, eg. running, picking objects. These actions are made based on the users' movements. In both cases users' movements are captured using the Kinect one sensor. Type of movements are selected based on user profile: age, preferences and medical condition. We evaluate both type of exergames on users of different ages and different medical conditions. In both cases the exergames aim to encourage people to lead an active lifestyle, combining the amusement and the pleasure to play with the benefits of performing specific physical exercises.

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