Design of an introductory medical gaming environment for diagnosis and management of Parkinson's disease

Gaming is used in a large number of medical situations including the diagnostic and treatment of a number of diseases. With rapid progression in hardware and software technologies, the possibilities for medical gaming are growing exponentially. One of the major innovations in human-computer interaction is referred to as Haptics, i.e., using the sense of touch. Hardware devices can be used to interact with computers in such a way that a patient can receive positive force-feedback, monitor and guide their movements. The collected data, when patients use such devices, can then be analyzed and used to diagnose a variety of diseases and manage them over their life-cycle. This paper describes the design of a medical diagnostic gaming environment that is used to gather patient information in a casual, non-obtrusive manner that is relaxing for the patient. The system employs the Novint Falcon Human Interface Device, a very sensitive device which records the user's movements and provides force feedback in almost all directions to guide a patient who may have problems reaching a specified goal within the game. Specifically, Parkinson's disease patients are measured both for the steadiness of their movements as they traverse through the game environment and their steady-state tremors. The information gathered can be invaluable in determining the progression or regression of the disease, detecting and arresting the disease at a given stage and for other related observations and inferences.