Balloon Buddies Video Game Uses Play to Help Aid Rehabilitation
From: Rehab Management - 11/20/2017

Balloon Buddies is a video game designed by researchers at Imperial College
London to help stroke patients and others with musculoskeletal injuries,
arthritis, or cerebral palsy to play with healthy cohorts as a form of
rehabilitation.

The point of the game is to balance a ball on a beam, which is lifted at each
of its ends by balloons controlled by the players. Points are awarded
according to how well the players vary the height of the beam so that the
ball collides with moving targets. Players are also required to work together
to keep the beam horizontal so that the ball doesn’t roll off the platform.

The game, which uses animation, sounds, and vibration-feedback, is played
using a wireless handgrip called a GripAble, which is engineered to enable
people with arm weakness to control video games on any standard tablet device.

According to the researchers, in a news story from Imperial College London,
Balloon Buddies is designed to level the playing field by allowing healthy
participants to support the less abled player. This type of collaboration
makes it more rewarding for the less-abled partner, more challenging for the
better partner, and overall more fun for both, as they have to continuously
work together to score points.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.rehabpub.com/2017/11/balloon-buddies-video-game-uses-play-help-aid-rehabilitation

Links:
Social mobile gaming boosts rehabilitation for physically impaired patients (with video 1:03)
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_20-11-2017-8-55-12

Balancing the playing field: collaborative gaming for physical training
https://jneuroengrehab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12984-017-0319-x

GripAble
http://gripable.org

GrtpAble Video (3:19)
https://youtu.be/Snt-BqIOJO0

Hand rehabilitation for stroke rehabilitation (video 3:43)
https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/helen-hamlyn-centre/research-projects/2016-projects/gripable

Human Robotics
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/human-robotics