Modularity for Modulating Exercises and Levels: Observations from Cardiac, Stroke, and COLD Patients Therapy

The modular interactive tiles aim at engaging anybody (elderly, carer, hospital personnel, children) in performing playful and motivating physical activities. Inspired by modular robotics, each tile is a self-contained module with processing power and communication to neighbouring modules, and a number of these can be put together in any physical shape by the user within a minute.

The tiles light up in different colors and can perceive the pressure when people press them with their hands or jump on them with their feet. Numerous games (exercises) are running on the tiles, and these games aim at providing high motivation for people to engage physically with the tiles. Therapists may use the tiles to provide treatment for a large number of patients who receive hospital, municipality or home care, although the tiles can as well be used for prevention with elderly or for fitness with normal people.

In this paper, we investigate the therapeutic use. We show how the tiles are tested extensively with cardiac patients, COLD patients and stroke patients in hospitals and in the private homes of patients and elderly. We find that therapists are using the modular aspect of the tiles for personalized training of a vast variety of elderly patients modulating exercises and difficulty levels.