Paper presentation at the Fifth International Congress on Information and Communication Technology held at London, United Kingdom | February 2020.

1. Diving into a Decade of Games
for Health Research:
A Systematic Review
ICICT 2020, London, 20th February 2020
Paula Alexandra Silva | Sergi Bermúdez i Badia | Mónica S. Cameirão

2. Topics
to be covered
Background
Research approach Concluding remarks
2
Results and findings

3. 1.
Background
Context and goals
3

4. Background
Context and goal
Context
▪ Precise, affordable, and pervasive gaming and entertainment
technologies
▪ Variety of application domains, from education to business and health
Goal
▪ Understand how the field of health entertainment computing has
evolved and what specific contributions it has made
▸ Systematic review of the literature published between 2004-2014 at
the intersection of health, entertainment, and technology
4

5. 2.
Research Approach
Search strategy and data extraction
5

6. 6
Search strategy
((health OR rehab*)
AND (((serious OR
computer OR interactive
OR video OR online)
AND gam*) OR
exergames OR
gamification OR ("virtual
reality" OR "augmented
reality" OR "mixed
reality"))) on IEEE,
PubMed, ACM DL.
Excluded
not accessible/possible
to locate; book, poster,
demo, workshop,
keynote, study protocol,
review, editorial, letter,
commentary, clinical
perspective or appraisal

7. 3.
Results and Findings
Trends, studies’ characteristics, technology purposes, and application domains
7

8. Yearly publication trends
Mainly conference contributions until 2012, later matched by journal publications 8
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Conferences Journals Total number of articles

9. Conferences
▪ ACM SIGCHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing
Systems (60)
▪ International Conference on Virtual
Rehabilitation (51)
▪ IEEE Annual International
Conference on Engineering in
Medicine and Biology Society (31)
▪ IEEE International Conference on
Rehabilitation Robotics (17)
▪ ACM SIGCHI Conference on
Interaction Design and Children (12)
Publication venues
top five
Journals
▪ Journal of NeuroEngineering and
Rehabilitation (18)
▪ IEEE Transactions on Neural
Systems and Rehabilitation
Engineering (17)
▪ Studies in Health Technology and
Informatics (15)
▪ Disability and Rehabilitation:
Assistive Technology (12)
▪ Annual Review of Cybertherapy
and Telemedicine (11)
9

10. 10
Purpose of the studies
Many presented multiple studies in different stages, but most to validate system
28
50
74
293
368
5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Conceptualisation
User research (before development)
Prototyping
Evaluation (the system itself)
Validation (outcome of the use of the system)
Not applicable

11. 11
Samples
Largest 1943, most frequent 10, average 41, median 19, journals larger
0
20
40
60
80
100
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Total Conference Journal
Linear (Total) Linear (Conference) Linear (Journal)
Condition of
participants
Patients (285), healthy
participants (211), both
(94), no info (73).
Stage of the
disease
Susceptibility (160), Pre-
symptomatic (24),
Clinical disease (249),
Recovery (228),
Disability (18), NAV
(63), NAP (75).
Sex
Male and female (455),
male (24), female (18),
noinfo(181).

12. 12
12
4
156
39
315
205
55
50
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Training and Simulation games for non-
Training and Simulation games for
Health and wellness games (fitness)
Education
Rehabilitation
Treatment or therapy
Detection
Health monitoring
For
non-patients
For
patients
Purpose of technology
Studies sometimes report on more than one purpose, most solutions aimed at rehabilitation

13. 13
Stroke
Balance
Spinal_Cord_Injury
Traumatic_Brain_Injury
Fitness
Motor_Rehabilitation
Cerebral_Palsy
Aging
Chronic_Pain
General_Health
Acquired_Brain_Injury
Burns
Dementia
Generalized_Anxiety_Disorder
Mild_Cognitive_Impairment
Multiple_Sclerosis
Obesity
Pain
Vestibular_Disorder
Brain_Tumor
Depression
Fall_Prevention
Parkinson's
Post−Traumatic_Stress_Disorder
Vision_Deficits
Autism
Attention_Deficit_Hyperactivity_Disorder
Brain_Injury
Diabetes
Eating_Disorders
Paranoia
Stress
Blindness
Cognitive_Benefits
Cognitive_Dysfunctio
Down_Syndrome
Cancer
Fatigue
Fibromyalgia
Nutrition
Spatial_Neglect
Topographical_Disorientation
0
50
100
150
200
Centrality:
Frequency:
5
10
15
20
Domains of intervention
Motor (454), cognitive (132), social (47), other (81). Most central: Stroke, Fitness, Aging, Parkinson’s.

14. 4.
Concluding remarks
Conclusions, limitations, future work
14

15. Concluding remarks
Conclusions, limitations, future work
Conclusions
▪ Area sustained increase.
▪ Samples growing in size, 80% with
target audience.
▪ ~58% focuses on development,
prototyping, and technical evaluation.
▪ Only 54% evaluated the outcome of use
of tools.
▪ Most solutions for motor interventions
and rehabilitation purposes.
▪ Most common intervention domains:
Stroke and Fitness.
Limitations
▪ Limited time span.
▪ Search criteria may
have excluded
relevant research.
▪ Assessment criteria
and subjective
interpretation.
Future work
▪ Currently reviewing
the literature up to
2018.
▪ To develop an
overall
understanding of the
field of health
entertainment
computing and
identify strengths,
weaknesses, and
future trends.
15

16. Thank you!!
Feel free to email us at with
comments/questions:
paulasilva@dei.uc.pt
sergi.bermudez@m-iti.org
monica.cameirao@m-iti.org
16
Research supported by MACBIOIDI: Promoting the
cohesion of Macaronesian regions through a common
ICT platform for biomedical R&D&i”
(INTERREG program MAC/1.1.b/098)