Author: Vivi

Ever since the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, COVID-19 has caught the world by surprise. Whilst COVID-19 cases continue to surge due to its variants, equipping the knowledge of prevention, such as receiving vaccination, practicing physical distancing, and appropriate sterilization, has become more important than ever. LongGood, being one with its roots in the area of healthcare, supports the way of promoting a safe and correct way of facing the Coronavirus, to protect you and your loved ones. Our team used this concept and created the telerehabilitation training exergame, named “New Way To Live”, emphasizing that the pandemic has brought inevitable changes to the lives of every one of us.

With its theme focusing on the topic of COVID-19, the exergame conveys the concept of sterilizing objects, namely house keys, backpacks and watches etc., right after arriving home. The user will be shown as holding a virtual spray bottle on each hand on the screen, while the aforementioned objects of daily life come onto the screen in a conveyor belt fashion, all with several viruses on the surface. The user’s mission is to open and close the hands as if he were squeezing the spray bottle to sterilize the objects and kill the viruses.

From a physiotherapist’s point of view, the aim of this rehabilitation exergame is divided into three main categories, grasp training, hand – eye coordination training, and balance training. As the main movement of detection of the exergame, the grasping action is extremely helpful for maintaining muscle strength in the hands, as well as improving blood circulation in the fingers. Patients with stroke can also benefit from the training exergame to optimize recovery in the hands. Hand- eye coordination is another crucial component of the exergame, for the player has to target the viruses on the moving objects accurately to complete the task. Additionally, the therapist or caretaker can modify the exergame by adding in the rule of “fixating the standing or sitting position of the user”, so that the user’s balance ability is challenged as he reaches out to the side.

The impact of the pandemic has not only changed the way we implement certain hygiene measures in our lives, but has also disconnected many of us with the community. In other words, quarantine in many parts of the world has decreased the accessibility of rehabilitation resources for residents in long-term care centers and individuals. These residents, who often possess chronic diseases, might also be hesitant in visiting clinics or hospitals for regular rehabilitation due to the fear of contracting COVID-19 in the high risk environment. This is when telerehabilitation comes into handy – residents of the care centers could easily access the training exergames via a quick set-up of a sensor that connects to the computer and screen. Similar to the other exergames in our HappyGoGo system, the statistics collected by the sensor will be available in a separate application right after the training session. Caregivers or individuals, regardless of their amount of knowledge in the area of healthcare, can access information (joint range of motion, movement asymmetry, etc.) and obtain an overview of their performance. However, what makes this new exergame unique is the integration of distant rehabilitation with the seemingly frustrating but important disinfection concept of the current era. Violà: simultaneously preventing COVID-19 mentally (as in health education) and physically.

The idea of sterilizing will definitely continue to be part of our daily lives for a period of time, as eradication of the virus seems improbable to most scientists, according to an article in Nature in February, 2021. We believe that our concept of preventing the spread of COVID-19 via the training exergame is universal, and this might be one of the topics that can bring all of us around the globe together virtually amidst the pandemic.