Gaming is used in a large number of medical situations including the diagnostic and treatment of a number of diseases. With rapid progression in hardware and software technologies, the possibilities for medical gaming are growing exponentially. One of the major innovations in human-computer interaction is referred to as Haptics, i.e., using the sense of touch. Hardware devices can be used to interact with computers in such a way that a patient can receive positive force-feedback, monitor and guide their movements. The collected data, when patients use such devices, can then be analyzed and used to diagnose a variety of diseases and manage them over their life-cycle.This paper describes the design of a medical diagnostic gaming environment that is used to gather patient information in a casual, nonobtrusive manner that is relaxing for the patient. The system employs the Novint Falcon Human Interface Device, a very sensitive device which records the user's movements and provides force feedback in almost all directions to guide a patient who may have problems reaching a specified goal within the game. Specifically, Parkinson's disease patients are measured both for the steadiness of their movements as they traverse through the game environment and their steady-state tremors. The information gathered can be invaluable in determining the progression or regression of the disease, detecting and arresting the disease at a given stage and for other related observations and inferences.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.