Cognitive Rehabilitation: A Comparison Model of a Digital Environment based on Serious Games and the Traditional Methods

Abstract

Technological innovation contributes to a personalised and integrated approach in education, journalism, communication, management, marketing, and above all, in healthcare. Facing the increasing number of new patients and the shortage of health specialists, the emergence of innovative technologies has brought the fields of health and technology closer together. This research aims to study digital environments in the context of neurocognitive rehabilitation, for the care of patients with deficits in cognitive functions, supported by Serious Games (SG). Typically, neurological patients suffer from cognitive deficits in executive, visuospatial, attention and/or memory functions. In this context, SG prefigure an appropriated tool that combines healthcare and rehabilitation, which allows the connection of healthcare specialists with a platform, as the connection of patients with life and disease companions with potential for collaboration and recording the evolution of the rehabilitation process. Aiming to identify the characteristics and requirements of SG in exposing neurological patients to a safe technological environment that simulates rehabilitation activities supported by SG (developed and oriented to their specificities), but also to make a comparison with traditional methods (TM). A model of comparison between the two paradigms was elaborated, which allowed the collection of requirements and characteristics for future developments. In conclusion, SG are not strictly better than traditional treatment (TT) methods in this context, but the elaborated comparison tends to point out that SG are sovereign to TM in improving training and producing quality data (in safety) for analysis, which allows the total rehabilitation process to be better conducted.