For this blog post, I explored various materials that might be relevant to my research, including articles, papers, books, and more. While I aimed to prioritize scientific sources, I did not limit myself exclusively to them.
The first source I examined was a paper titled “A Therapy-Driven Gamification Framework for Hand Rehabilitation.” This paper presents an innovative e-health framework that uses adaptive serious games to facilitate hand rehabilitation for individuals with disabilities. Their end product was a serious game where players control an airplane or spaceship using the rotation and movements of their hands. What I found particularly intriguing was that the system accommodates users with vastly different levels of hand flexibility. According to the paper, the normal range for wrist flexion is 75°, but some individuals may only be able to flex their wrist up to 20°. The system can register these varying levels of flexibility and then devise a plan to gradually improve the patient’s ability through multiple steps. Additionally, I was interested to see that they used Leap Motion as the controller, a piece of technology we received a workshop on.

“Digitale Gesundheitsinterventionen” was an extensive and challenging read. It covers various digital health interventions and options, with gamification being more of a side topic. The main focus is on IMIs, or “internet- und mobilbasierte Interventionen” (internet- and mobile-based interventions). Nonetheless, it was insightful to browse through the book as it addresses a wide range of health problems. There are also dedicated chapters on specific target groups, such as the peculiarities of childhood and adolescence. I found the chapters on “Persuasive Design” and “Ethische Risiken” (ethical risks) particularly insightful.
The paper “Gamification in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation” caught my interest because it focused on analyzing the general usefulness of gamified approaches. Seven articles were analyzed, and the results showed that gamification can be genuinely beneficial and is not just a novel idea without real merit. Since I am considering this topic for my master’s thesis, it was important to me to find data that provides a solid basis for argumentation.
I also read passages from “Making Points the Point: Towards a History of Ideas of Gamification,” “Rethinking Gamification,” and “Actionable Gamification” by Yu-Kai Chou. These reads focused more on gamification in general and less on health. I skimmed through them, reading passages that seemed interesting. However, I am not yet sure whether I will include them in my further research as they did not seem as directly applicable as others might.
I believe it is important to continue conducting traditional research alongside these more hands-on explorations.
Sources:
- Afyouni, Imad, Faizan Ur Rehman, Ahmad Muaz Qamar, Sohaib Ghani, Syed Osama Hussain, Bilal Sadiq, Mohamed Abdur Rahman, Abdullah Murad, and Saleh Basalamah. “A Therapy-Driven Gamification Framework for Hand Rehabilitation.” User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 27, no. 2 (June 2017): 215–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-017-9191-4.