GAME-ABLING

PLATFORM OF GAMES FOR PEOPLE WITH CEREBRAL PALSY TO ENHANCE LIVING ADJUSTMENT

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Cerebral Palsy (CP) is one of the most frequently conditions in childhood, with an incidence of 2 per 1,000 live births. In the EU there is 1.3 out of 15 million persons with CP in the world. This neurological disorder affects body movement, balance and posture and almost always is accompanied by other cognitive or sensory impairments like mental retardation, deafness and vision problems. The severity of these problems varies widely, from very mild and subtle to very profound. These disabilities lead to an inactive lifestyle which reduces the patient’s physical health, social participation, and quality of life. Therapy costs can be up to €45,000 by year, a cost that cannot be afforded by most of the families. Playing Video games is a useful treatment that promotes and maintains more active and healthful lifestyle in these persons. This in turn contributes to reduce medical and social care cost and improve well-being of their families. However accessibility to videogames is hardly applied for them. GAME-ABLING is to create a software tool for creating interactive video games in an intuitive manner in such a way that non-expert personnel (e.g. parents) can develop customized games. Games will be controlled using body movements and voice. To this end, Computer Vision and image processing techniques will be developed to improve accessibility. GAME-ABLING will create a web portal to make up a disabled gaming e-community in where users will have access to use the software tool, play games and upload own creations to share it. SMEs envisage GAME-ABLING exploitation following a subscription business model to have full access to the web portal. GAME-ABLING represents a business opportunity for the SMEs, who expect to reach 0.5% world market penetration and an accumulated income of €9.9 million in 5 years. In addition, GAME-ABLING will contribute to reduce medical and social care costs in the EU by at least 0.5% which supposes additional annual savings of €200 million.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neuro-degenerative disease that affects 15 million people worldwide, and 1.3 million in the EU alone. Researchers are now building a software platform for game developers to create games that can be played by CP sufferers.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

CP is associated with an inactive lifestyle that affects physical, social and mental well-being.

Video games offer a way to improve mental and physical health but there are few, if any, games suited to CP patients.With the support of EU funding, the 'Platform of games for people with cerebral palsy to enhance living adjustment' (http://www.game-abling.eu (GAME-ABLING)) project set out to produce a commercial game development platform to address this.

The platform will be used by game developers to make games, but is also simple enough for non-professionals (like parents of CP patients) to create customised games.The project initially focused on defining system specifications as well as the ethics and protocols of data collection.

A common framework was then built using the C++ programming language.The next task was to create video motion libraries, which are coupled with location-, head- and hand-tracking algorithms to form the control system.

Researchers also built algorithms that can use sounds as a game controller, and the system accommodates other controllers such as a keyboard and mouse.Two simple games were built using the system, for testing purposes.

One of these also has a web application that allows users to create their own mini-games.Once complete, GAME-ABLING will be offered as an online subscription service, giving users access to the system and games created by others.

In addition, the platform will provide data logging and activity reporting, allowing parents and doctors to monitor the physical activity of CP patients.