JMIR Serious Games

Accumulating evidence and medical guidelines recommend high-dose neurorehabilitation for recovery after stroke. The reality, however, is that most patients receive a fraction of this dose, with therapist availability and costs of delivery being major implementational barriers.

Basketball exists as a team-based sport played on a court involving intense physical demands because players need continuous movement between offensive and defensive zones.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a rapidly growing neurological condition worldwide. While physiotherapy and exercise are effective interventions, the addition of motivational aspects that improve adherence could be beneficial for people with PD. Incorporating technological devices into motor rehabilitation, coupled with gamification elements, could enhance the relevance of rehabilitation and alleviate motor symptoms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected health care professionals, especially nurses, who have experienced elevated levels of stress, burnout, and physical health challenges. In the postpandemic era, supporting their well-being is crucial. Gamification, which is the application of game design elements in nongame contexts, has emerged as a promising strategy to promote engagement in health behaviors. This study explores the use of a gamified mobile app to support self-health management among nurses recovering from the COVID-19 experience.

Rehabilitation interventions to improve standing balance are often tedious and complex limiting user engagement and increasing the burden of the clinicians delivering them. Virtual Reality (VR) has been incorporated into such practices as a solution and VR illusions have emerged as a method for perturbing balance within interventions. However, the influence of VR illusions on balance performance, such as Centre of Pressure (CoP), and user experience metrics remains under explored.

The opioid crisis has significantly impacted adolescents and their families. This is attributed in part to increased opioid prescriptions in pediatric Emergency Departments (EDs) due to acute pain condition and injuries. Although EDs frequently prescribe opioids, no effective preventative interventions have been implemented to educate adolescents and their families on safe opioid use. This study evaluates the MedSMA℞T Families intervention, which consists of an engaging serious game, Adventures in PharmaCity, and a personalized Family Medication Safety Plan (FMSP) with the aim to reduce opioid misuse and promote opioid medication safety. The MedSMA℞T Families intervention was developed to educate adolescents and adults prescribed opioids on safe practices such as opioid storage and disposal.

As a novel intervention method that combines exercise and games, exergames have demonstrated a positive impact on enhancing the cognitive and physical functions of older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, there remains a dearth of knowledge and evidence regarding the experiences and needs of the older adult population in China with MCI about exergames.

Visualization technology is enhancing interactive learning by merging digital content with real-world environments, offering immersive experiences through Augmented Reality (AR) in fields like medical education. AR is being increasingly used in medicine and dental education to improve student learning, particularly in understanding complex concepts such as bone remodeling. Active learning strategies, supported by AR, boost student autonomy, reduce cognitive load, and improve learning outcomes across various disciplines. AR is gaining popularity in higher education as it enhances active learning, reduces cognitive load, and improves cognitive, meta-cognitive, and affective outcomes, particularly in medical and nursing education. The effectiveness of immersive AR in enhancing understanding of complex physiological processes is still unclear, with a lack of rigorous studies on its impact and how to effectively convert academic content into AR.

Nature engagement, including affective and physical interactions with nature, is linked to a multitude of health and well-being benefits. Unfortunately, opportunities for engaging with nature are decreasing worldwide. University students, especially, are a demographic group that tends to engage little with nature. Immersive virtual nature (IVN; ie, digital nature content delivered through immersive devices, such as head-mounted displays) has been proposed as a medium to facilitate nature experiences and engagement. In recent years, 360° nature videos have emerged as an accessible way to create IVN content, although it is still unclear whether they can elicit presence and increase nature engagement to a greater extent than nature videos delivered through nonimmersive media.

Hospitalized older adults often spend prolonged periods of time bedridden leading to decreased muscle strength and function. To tackle this, rehabilitation aims to keep patients active and train affected muscles. Exergames have proven to be effective in rehabilitation of different patient populations and offer a motivating solution to combat inactivity associated with hospitalization. Furthermore, blood flow restriction (BFR) is effective in therapy of weakened patients so combining BFR and exergames might be promising.

Age-related physiological changes in older adults involve a rapid decline in motor exercise ability; some older adults may also experience difficulties in maintaining focus, memory loss, and a decline in reaction time, which consequently impair their ability to perform dual tasks. Motor-cognitive training (MCT) refers to a blend of motor activity and cognitive training that occurs simultaneously and can assist older adults in enhancing their physical function, cognitive abilities, and dual-task performance. In recent years, the use of technology for delivering MCT has become increasingly popular in research. This has been achieved through various technologies that simplify MCT for older adults.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requires consistent sustained management, including regular physical activity, pulmonary rehabilitation, and self-care adherence. Despite strong clinical guidelines, patient engagement remains a major challenge, leading to suboptimal disease control and increased health care use. Gamified interventions have emerged as potential tools to improve adherence, motivation, and outcomes in chronic disease management. However, their effectiveness and implementation in COPD remain underexplored.