The Design and Implementation of a Game Framework to Support Treatment of Chronic Disorders in Child

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The Design and Implementation of a Game Framework
to Support Treatment of Chronic Disorders in
Children

• MACS project presentation
• Author Fengan Liu
• Supervisor Dr. Carolyn Watters
• Apr 15, 2008

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Forecast

• Games
• Long term
• treatment

Starlight Starbright Childrens Foundation Canada
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Outline

• Background (motivation, related work, etc)
• Design of major components
• Implementation
• Summary
• Future work

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Background Games in Health

• Games in learning
• Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus
• Players 40 fewer in hospital 2
• Games in distraction
• Gameboy Vs tranquilizer 3
• Games as coach
• PDA for children to keep pain journals 4
• Not enough research

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Background - Motivation

• What is after the initial learning phase?
• Reinforcement of information
• Distraction
• Skills practice
• Improving long term behaviour

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Background Related Work

• Games
• Regular and health games, e.g. Operation IBD
• Research papers from SAGE 5
• Watters C. (2006), Extending the Use of Games in
  Health Care 2
• Kharrazi H. (2007), Improving Behavioral Stages
  in Children by Adaptive Applications 6
• Other research papers
• HCI, game design, etc.

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Our Method

• Accessibility on desktop and mobile
• Desktop more popular
• Mobile devices accessible anytime anywhere
• Personalizable and adaptable games
• Personal profile and historical data
• Adaptable content for different treatment
• New games over time
• Easy to install and remove games

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Design Guidelines Architecture

• A background scenario
• Plugn play games
• Existing games
• Adapted games
• New games
• Dynamic Database
• Separate data from games
• Separate data for user analysis

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Design Background Scenario (SageCity)
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Design - Games

• Leopardy
• Based on Jeopardy!
• Health related
• questions
• Make virtual money
• Multi-languages

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Design - Games

• Airfox
• Original shooting game
• Multi-language
• Word tags
• Track data

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Design - Database
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Implementation - Platform

• Windows on PC
• CCS, database Java
• SageCity, games - Flash

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Implementation Central Controller and Server

• Central Controller
• Launch external
• programs
• Server
• TCP protocol
• HTTP command
• Data via Java I/O

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Implementation SageCity

• Graphics
• Map
• Control
• Links

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Implementation - Leopardy

• Text from external file
• XMLSocket to
• Communicate
• Unicode to support
• Multi-Language

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Implementation Sample Questions
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Implementation Adapted Airfox

• Modified version
• Random word tag
• Record data
• Outside text file
• Multi-Language

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Summary

• Design and implementation of the framework
• Background scenario (SageCity, CCS)
• Plug-in games
• Existing games
• New games (Leopardy)
• Adapted games (Airfox)
• Database
• The authors contribution

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Future Work

• Availability on mobile computers
• Friendly information editor and interface
• Easier for educators and doctors to use

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References

• 1 Starlight Starbright Childrens foundation,
  available onlie at www.Starlight.org
• 2 Watter C. (2007). Extending the Use of Games
  in Health Care. HICSS39. Hawaii, Jan 3-9
• 3 Patel, A. (2005). Distraction with Handheld
  Video Game is an Effective Anxiolytic. Reported
  in Anesthiology News. March 2005.
• 4 Palermo, T., et al. (2004). A Randomized
  Trial of Electronic versus Paper Pain Diaries in
  Children Impact on Compliance, Accuracy, and
  Acceptability. Pain, 107(3), 213-219.
• 5 SAGE. Simulation and Advanced Gaming
  Environments for Learning. Available online at
  http//www.sageforlearning.ca/
• 6 Kharrazi H. (2007), Improving Behavioral
  Stages in Children by Adaptive Applications,
  Todays Information for Tomorrows Improvements
  (ITCH 2007), Victoria, Canada.