Empowering pediatric rehabilitation: integrating sensory games on the humanoid robot

For children with developmental disabilities, assistive technology such as Agent/robot can be supportive rehabilitation tools. Any hardware or software product that supports people with disabilities in conserving or recovering their functioning and improving their independence is considered an assistive technology. . In the case of children with cerebral palsy, parents and therapists believe motivation is one of the most important components of motor and functional outcomes. The main objective of this project is to develop and introduce a Rehab game system with empathic scenarios, incorporating advanced technology like humanoid agents/robots to motivate children with cerebral palsy. In this project, the humanoid agent, exemplified by the Pepper robot, addresses a key challenge in pediatric rehabilitation: sustaining children’s motivation during exercises. While games have been used as motivators, the unique appeal of humanoid agents to children offers a novel method for enhancing engagement. The proposed rehab game system involves the use of IMU/sEMG sensors, a rehabilitation games set, and a humanoid robot/agent (Pepper or Nao) to encourage children with CP to perform their rehabilitation exercises. Furthermore, by incorporating therapists’ views on integrating agents into rehabilitation game system, a comprehensive understanding will be achieved.