ABSTRACT
Exergames have been the subject of research and technology innovations for a number of years. Different devices and technologies have been utilized to train the body and the mind of senior people or different patient groups. In the past, we presented FitForAll, the protocol efficacy of which was proven through widely taken (controlled) pilots with more than 116 seniors for a period of two months. The current piece of work expands this and presents the first truly web exergaming platform, which is solely based on HTML5 and JavaScript without any browser plugin requirements. The adopted architecture (controller application communication framework) combines a unified solution for input devices such as MS Kinect and Wii Balance Βoard which may seamlessly be exploited through standard physical exercise protocols (American College of Sports Medicine guidelines) and accommodate high detail logging; this allows for proper pilot testing and usability evaluations in ecologically valid Living Lab environments. The latter type of setups is also used herein for evaluating the web application with more than a dozen of real elderly users following quantitative approaches.
Subject(s)
Exercise Therapy/instrumentation , Exercise Therapy/methods , Exercise/physiology , Video Games , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: It has been shown that exergames have multiple benefits for physical, mental and cognitive health. Only recently, however, researchers have started considering them as health monitoring tools, through collection and analysis of game metrics data. In light of this and initiatives like the Quantified Self, there is an emerging need to open the data produced by health games and their associated metrics in order for them to be evaluated by the research community in an attempt to quantify their potential health, cognitive and physiological benefits. METHODS: We have developed an ontology that describes exergames using the Web Ontology Language (OWL); it is available at http://purl.org/net/exergame/ns#. After an investigation of key components of exergames, relevant ontologies were incorporated, while necessary classes and properties were defined to model these components. A JavaScript framework was also developed in order to apply the ontology to online exergames. Finally, a SPARQL Endpoint is provided to enable open data access to potential clients through the web. RESULTS: Exergame components include details for players, game sessions, as well as, data produced during these game-playing sessions. The description of the game includes elements such as goals, game controllers and presentation hardware used; what is more, concepts from already existing ontologies are reused/repurposed. Game sessions include information related to the player, the date and venue where the game was played, as well as, the results/scores that were produced/achieved. These games are subsequently played by 14 users in multiple game sessions and the results derived from these sessions are published in a triplestore as open data. CONCLUSIONS: We model concepts related to exergames by providing a standardized structure for reference and comparison. This is the first work that publishes data from actual exergame sessions on the web, facilitating the integration and analysis of the data, while allowing open data access through the web in an effort to enable the concept of Open Trials for Active and Healthy Ageing.
Subject(s)
Exercise , Video Games , Vocabulary, Controlled , Aged , Female , Humans , Internet , Male , User-Computer InterfaceABSTRACT
In healthcare applications a large cohort of recent implementations utilises IoT-oriented infrastructures (XMPP) as well as smart mobile devices as communication gateways. IoT characteristi Communication/Connectivity, Pervasive Computing and Ambient Intelligence, are all highly related to Active and Healthy Aging environments. This paper presents a new idea, that of IoT enabled devices which are directly connected to the IoT (a glucose meter is used as an example herein), complying with the XMPP messaging protocol and the incorporation of a recently released Controller Application Communication (CAC) framework for distributed, cross-platform communication. A web based exergaming platform and a disease management tool, provide the vehicles for the demonstration of the feasibility and the successful implementation and integration of the aforementioned infrastructure.
