MedBike: Virtual Reality for Remote Cardiac Rehabilitation

Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (exCR) is a key element of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation program towards the care of patients with acute or chronic cardiac disease. Many studies have shown that patient’s adherence to these programs is low despite evidence that such programs can improve outcomes and critical cardiac event reduction. New strategies to improve adherence to exCR programs are now being tested using non-hospital solutions that relies on VR gaming technologies. This paper presents such a system called MedBike which allows patients to perform an exCR program at home while being monitored in real-time by a remote clinician. The paper describes the technical aspects of the system, its pros and cons, various gamification strategies, and a recent usability study