Functional assessment during physical rehabilitation exercises using serious games

Lack of motivation has been highlighted as a major cause of adverse patients outcomes during the rehabilitation process.Thanks to the evolution in the way video games are controlled, from totally passive to active situation, clinicians have had the idea of integrating video games into rehabilitation to increase adherence to treatments, especially during at-home exercises.Specially developed games, the Serious Games (SG), must be created to fulfill the needs and specificities of clinicians and patients.As the rehabilitation exercises are performed in the SG, it is easy to record the movements performed by the patients with the gaming hardware.The aim of this thesis was to determine if the gaming hardware, the Kinect sensor and the Wii Balance Board, can be used to: i) perform functional evaluation of the patients, ii) monitor motions performed by the patients during the rehabilitation exercises and iii) assess the severity of the disease based on the performance during the SG.In order to validate this new approach several validation processes were done: from the strict controlled environment gait laboratory to the clinics.The different developments and validation phases are presented in this thesis.Doctorat en Sciences biomédicales et pharmaceutiques (Médecine)