RECOVI Concussion Broadcast

Inspiration

Recovering from a concussion is a difficult and frustrating journey. Patients are often faced with an inability to concentrate, a general slowdown in cognition and movement during the recovery phase. We decided to pose one simple question: What if cognitive training wasn't just another tiresome medical activity, but an engaging interactive game? That question is where RECOVI Concussion Broadcast came from. We envisioned an application themed as a broadcast that allowed the patient to engage in an interactive task involving stillness and basic cognitive problems that train attention and cognitive processing ability. Our main goal here was to increase engagement with the recovery-oriented activities that the patient faces through game elements. We were greatly influenced by the emergence of games and the increase in potential of interactive applications in health rehabilitation and cognitive stimulation. As we know from the rise of gamified systems for patient rehabilitation, interactive applications are able to keep users more engaged when doing repeated activities.

What it does

RECOVI Concussion Broadcast is a game prototype targeted toward cognitive engagement training for concussion patients. The application itself uses a broadcast or talk show styled framework in which the user engages in several quick, math and cognitive based tasks while aiming to stay relatively still and maintain attention. Essentially, our experience is founded on four main concepts and technologies. These were:

• Basic Cognitive Task ( through mathematics)
• Gamified Interaction ( to increase repetitive task enjoyment )
• Attention/Focus ( training)
• Stillness-based game mechanics (due to specific need )
• Broadcast styled thematic (to enhance user experience ) Instead of merely receiving a traditional quiz sheet or set of repetitive tasks to perform, RECOVI turns these cognitive tasks into interactive experiences. Important Note: RECOVI is a conceptual prototype and is not intended to replace medical treatment of a diagnosed concussion nor can RECOVI diagnose or treat concussions itself.

How we built it

RECOVI was an extremely straightforward design process based on combining simple cognitive activities and game mechanics. Our process involved developing a simple and fun activity:

• Extremely straightforward to understand and to play
• Very user-friendly
• Not too complex that it is daunting
• Designed as part of a unified broadcast/game-show interface The basic gameplay allowed for the player to solve math problems while also engaged in an interactive event. User Experience (UX) design was equally a major part of the development of this application as its intended use is in a medical or rehabilitational setting which may potentially add frustrations with cognitive fatigue for users. Consequently we've tried to keep UI extremely clean. The RECOVI Concussion Broadcast was an attempt at an incredibly collaborative idea, in which all members had some kind of role, and it involved constant communication on design and development choices.

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some key projects that we are proud of creating include the development of a truly one-of-a-kind talk-show-themed game-based prototype. We were able to fuse gameplay and cognitive tasks together as well as determine a range of possible applications for technology and gamification in enhancing recovery-oriented exercises. We were also able to develop this application from conception all the way up to functioning project and were delighted to create an interactive system based on a healthcare-concept. The idea was converted into something that provided enjoyment while catering toward a potentially meaningful real-world solution. However, some might say that RECOVI Concussion Broadcast is not just a standard math game; rather, it is our initial venture toward a more unique direction in creating useful applications focused around the idea that some challenging and crucial daily activities could really use less mundane approaches toward encouraging patients to practice necessary cognitive rehabilitation.

What we learned

We definitely learned a lot through the development of this application but the main learning experience was recognizing that designing and implementing technological applications on a medical or rehabilitational level takes much more than only writing computer code and has more important variables at play. We specifically learned about:

• The extreme significance of UX in terms of users possibly dealing with cognitive impairment.
• How gamification principles have a strong potential to turn mundane tasks into compelling ones.
• The general benefit of using a user-interface that is intuitive for the masses and has a sense of approachability to medical patients and those suffering from various diseases or illnesses.
• How delicate a balance can be drawn between offering enjoyable entertainment and a worthwhile solution to actual real-world issues and that each of these elements must be considered equally important throughout.
• The requirement of ensuring and communicating clearly about any medical limitations of developing applications for rehabilitational purposes. Finally, we've truly seen how the blending and creation between seemingly disconnected topics like gaming, technology, health sciences and cognition could lead to completely new possibilities that individuals could take advantage of. ## What's next for RECOVI Concussion Broadcast RECOVI Concussion Broadcast is a prototype. It's still in its nascent stages but we are able to find that the application does have great potential toward growth. Some next steps for the application could possibly include:
• Development and integration of additional varying cognitive and difficulty levels.
• The design of mechanisms that permit personalization within each player's profile.
• Implementation of progress tracking capability.
• Optimization and modification of user interface to further improve accessibility.
• Creation of additional new game modes.
• Further discussions with healthcare professionals to determine effective methods in which this concept may be used.
• Rigorous scientific research to demonstrate practical clinical uses and validity before any applications could be assumed. Ideally, we would love to see RECOVI blossom into more than just a hackathon prototype and perhaps even grow into a functional and established application platform capable of aiding cognitive learning.

Built With

• pygame
• python
• standard