Toys4Therapy

Paediatric occupational therapy and physiotherapy aim to enhance the overall quality of life for the child with cerebral palsy (and their family) by establishing adequate exercises that are to be performed daily at home. These therapies improve muscle mobility, preventing further spasticity of the hand. Current tools used in therapy, are expensive and complex which limits their availability to rehabilitation centres. More accessible tools such as the Oculus-Rift (virtual reality), Kinect and Wii focus primarily on gross motor skills (Guberek et al., 2009; Winkels, Kottink, Temmink, Nijlant, & Buurke, 2013), and traditional toys lack the ability to generate data that can be useful for therapy. Accordingly, the limitations of present therapies demonstrate a significant need for the development of novel approaches and treatments.

With this project we are interested in researching: “How to design smart-toys to improve home-based therapies for children with Cerebral Palsy?”. This research project will be using a Research through Design (RtD) approach as proposed by Zimmerman et al. (Zimmerman, Forlizzi, & Evenson, 2007) for iterative creation of prototypes and knowledge generation as is standard in-game development. This research makes emphasis in the use of toys, which are more open-ended than most games that have predefined rules and outcomes but give more opportunity for imagination.

This research provides an important opportunity to advance the understanding of motivation and playfulness in therapy assisted by new technologies. This is a PhD project executed in collaboration with the ‘Digital Society School’, the ‘Play and Civic Media’ lectorate and the Digital Life Centre in the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the ‘University of Twente’ and ‘Roessingh Rehabilitation Centre’.

For more information visit the website Toys4Therapy