Serious Games and Mixed Reality Applications for Healthcare

• Other Authors: Gesi, Marco (Editor), Condino, Sara (Editor), Turini, Giuseppe (Editor), Viglialoro, Rosanna Maria (Editor), Carbone, Marina (Editor)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022
• Subjects: Research & information: general; Biology, life sciences; Biochemistry; reaction time; accuracy rate; serious game; PC-based game; MCI; dementia; elderly healthcare; cognitive function; surgical simulation; augmented reality; spine surgery; hybrid simulator; pedicle screws fixation training; unity game engine; healthcare simulation; mixed reality; hybrid; medical training; serious games; rehabilitation; elderly; body tracking; exercise games; AMD; salience; virtual reality; VR; preventive care; self-regulation; assisted Neurofeedback; neurostimulation; mindfulness; randomized; serious games BCI; exergames; personalized exergames; multicomponent training; wearable sensors; older adults; game design; interaction design; mild cognitive impairment; machine learning; feature selection; data transformations; classification; n/a
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have long histories in the healthcare sector, offering the opportunity to develop a wide range of tools and applications aimed at improving the quality of care and efficiency of services for professionals and patients alike. The best-known examples of VR-AR applications in the healthcare domain include surgical planning and medical training by means of simulation technologies. Techniques used in surgical simulation have also been applied to cognitive and motor rehabilitation, pain management, and patient and professional education. Serious games are ones in which the main goal is not entertainment, but a crucial purpose, ranging from the acquisition of knowledge to interactive training.These games are attracting growing attention in healthcare because of their several benefits: motivation, interactivity, adaptation to user competence level, flexibility in time, repeatability, and continuous feedback. Recently, healthcare has also become one of the biggest adopters of mixed reality (MR), which merges real and virtual content to generate novel environments, where physical and digital objects not only coexist, but are also capable of interacting with each other in real time, encompassing both VR and AR applications.This Special Issue aims to gather and publish original scientific contributions exploring opportunities and addressing challenges in both the theoretical and applied aspects of VR-AR and MR applications in healthcare.