Interactive game experience: a preliminary investigation of the impact of virtual reality on exercise rehabilitation behaviors

Abstract

ABSTRACT Tennis elbow, known as lateral epicondylitis in medical terms, which affects the daily life function of most patients. Many patients are becoming less willing to practice traditional rehabilitation due to time and space constraints and the need to go to the hospital for rehabilitation. In this study, the concept of user experience, and the remote therapy model were used to design a virtual reality interactive game system which incorporated lateral epicondylitis exercise rehabilitation knowledge on user learning. The usability of this system was evaluated by a digital content instructor and a rehabilitation practitioner before being put into practice to test the user experience. The system could provide four rehabilitation modes for the user to choose from, with the guidance of a virtual physiotherapist or therapist, to achieve optimal results. This study found that virtual reality provided good interaction satisfaction for the users, but that a long operation time or too much information might bring users the feeling of troublesome. The integration of digital information content and control on the length of operation time were important factors when designing this kind of games.