Online Service of Personalised Games for People with Cerebral Palsy to Enhance their Abilities and Living Adjustment

Project Information

AbleGames

Grant agreement ID: 958637

DOI

10.3030/958637

Project closed

EC signature date 7 August 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 31 August 2022

Funded under

• Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Total cost

€ 2 248 866,25

EU contribution

€ 1 695 768,26

Coordinated by

HUGINTECH AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AbleGames (Online Service of Personalised Games for People with Cerebral Palsy to Enhance their Abilities and Living Adjustment)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a frequent neurological disorder (2.1 per 1k births) affecting an estimated 0.7M people in the EU and 17M globally.
It is the most common movement disorder for young people.
CP is a permanent disorder of movement and posture, causing activity limitation.
Therapy focuses on helping the person to develop motor skills and integrate into society.

Play is probably the main activity for any young person.
However, youths affected by CP have fewer opportunities to participate in traditional games and exercises contributing to a cycle of deconditioning as youths with CP grow into adulthood, resulting in deteriorating physical functions, which also negatively impacts their opportunities for social interaction.
Playing digital video games can promote health and well-being for such youths. However, due to the restrictions in body movements, playing normal video games is not possible for most CP patients.
The control of such games needs to be specifically tailored to their abilities, while at the same time making them fun and engaging enough so they are motivated to play them and improve. However there is no comprehensive solution on the market right now.

The AbleGames project is providing such a solution, as a disruptively innovative social-collaboration serious physical gaming platform at www.stasism.com (stasism is a condition of balance).
This serious gaming service personalises and improves the physical therapy, balance, peer community inclusion, quality of life and enjoyment of people with CP.

Based a proven therapeutic approach and 15 years’ clinical experience, the Stasism service uses physical games to bridge the gap between playing and therapy, contributing to the development of social, and motor skills, motivating the players to continue playing while fostering their rehabilitation at the same time.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first period the AbleGames project implemented the http://www.stasism.com hosting platform of serious games (exergames and non-exergames) focused on improving motor skills, balance, and visual-motor coordination for youths with CP. These games leverage the latest advances in gaming techniques and ICT to improve accessibility. The platform is constructed to enhance social networking, which allows parents, caregivers, and players to socialize in a common environment, to share experiences and advice, to provide the best care for CP players. Parents and other caregivers are also able to share best practices and lessons learned amongst themselves, which helps them to provide a better service across Europe and beyond.

During the project we have
• Set up the operational Stasism integrated development & hosting platform in the cloud
• Commercialized its games and tools
• Expanded its games library with new and exciting games
• Expanded the tools library
• Added additional game control types by advanced ML using a simple web-camera
• Added support for CP Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS0 Level 4 (In addition to GMFCS Level 1, 2 & 3)
• Added a simple installation procedure
• Added billing support to Stasism
• Added social features to Stasism
• Set up the ability for users to create their own version of games and share it with their friends and/or all other Stasism users
• Provided full support for game challenges with the player’s our friends: Play any game together (or against) their friends
• Added achievement and rewards for the games, to keep users coming back for their physical therapy
• Added an AI-backed recommendation engine, so that the system can recommend difficulty levels for players
• Deployed the Stasism service in 7 pilot trials reference centres around Europe.
• Disseminated the project both digitally and physically

The platform and its content have been constantly updated (and is being constantly updated), based on the feedback from the ApleGames reference pilot trials’ centres.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

There are many game services available for users today (e.g. Steam, Origin, Epic), but none for people with Cerebral Palsy.
The AbleGames project is providing Stasism as the world’s first social online platform with therapeutic physical serious games made exclusively for people with Cerebral Palsy.
It delivers a constant stream of new and exciting games, characters, features and much more, leading to a happier and healthier childhood.
“Forget that you are doing physical therapy! Just play, socialize, and have fun with your peers.”

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