Development of a virtual reality game for rehabilitation of patients with lower extremity musculoskeletal disorders.

INTRODUCTION

Exercise therapy is a commonly recommended intervention for managing musculoskeletal disorders. Utilizing virtual reality (VR) could prove effective in enhancing exercise therapy. Consequently, the objective of this study is to design and develop a prototype of a VR-based therapeutic exercise game called Vitality, which is suitable for patients with lower limb musculoskeletal disorders.

METHODS

This development-applied study was conducted in three phases, determining the identification and confirming requirements, development, and performance evaluation. In the first phase, functionality was extracted by the Delphi technique. In the second phase, the prototype was developed using the Unity 2018 reconstruction engine. Finally, the Vitality was evaluated using the ISO/IEC 25010:2011 product quality model.

RESULTS

The implementation of the first phase led to the extraction of therapeutic practice and the selection of 54 information items during two Delphi rounds for the VR game. A game prototype was then developed, focusing on each of the 16-step therapy exercises in an avatar-based fashion. The evaluation results showed that the functional suitability of the Vitality was 88% and its usability was 94%.

CONCLUSIONS

This research presents the VR game for the rehabilitation of different types of musculoskeletal disorders by considering more exercises and a customizable user interface that allows for game difficulty adjustment.