WikiTherapist (2011-2015)

WikiTherapist was a research project by, amongst others, Dr. Leo Kannerhuis, Adelante Zorggroep, Eindhoven University of Technology, SymbioTherapy and TiViPe. The goal of the project was to investigate how interactive technology could be applied within healthcare, for example in training persons with autism spectrum disorder and in stroke rehabilitation training.

TagTrainer is an extensible tangible platform for rehabilitation training that was developed as part of the WikiTherapist project. It allows for personalized rehabilitation training with objects of everyday life, and promises an increase in patient motivation, training intensity and training variety.

The TagTrainer platform consists of one or more TagTile boards, as well as accompanying software that allows the creation, modification and playback of training exercises.

TagTile boards are interactive boards that can locate and identify RFID-tagged objects and provide visual and auditory feedback. The boards, which are manufactured bySymbioTherapy, were originally designed for use in primary school classrooms as a tool for educational gaming. However, the fact that they can interact with any RFID-tagged object makes them especially suitable for use within the rehabilitation context.

While the boards can run stand-alone, in the TagTrainer system they are always connected to a computer that runs TagTrainer software.

The TagTrainer Patient Interface (TTPI) allows therapists to compose exercise programs for their patients. Exercises can be scheduled for future training sessions, and therapists can set parameters such as the frequency of instructions, recovery time in between exercises etc.

Patients that want to train with TagTrainer can simply login and start their training. The TTPI guides patients through their exercise program, while keeping track of their performance. The currently available performance measures are execution speed and precision, but other measures such as the amount of compensation (to indicate qualtiy of movement) are being integrated.

Exercises are created with TEC by selecting a set of objects for the exercise, and composing a sequence of actions that need to be performed with these objects. Users are able to drag actions from the library (C) onto the exercise timeline (A) and modify action properties in the properties panel (B).

While the basic TagTrainer system already offers a wide variety of exercises (over 150), the Tag Exercise Creator (TEC) allows therapists to quickly create new training content for a patient. Creating a new exercise with the TEC is as easy as selecting a set of training objects (e.g. knife and fork), and then assigning spacial displacement actions (picking up, putting down, moving, etc.) to these objects on a timeline. A skilled therapist will be able to create an entirely new exercise within 10 minutes.

Newly created exercises are directly availble to patients, and can be shared with other TagTrainer users. It is also possible to create derivative exercises from existing TagTrainer content.