Dynamic difficulty adjustment in exer-games for rehabilitation: a mixed approach

In recent years, the use of exer-games in the rehabilitation field has significantly increased. Exercises and exer-games must be carefully customized and adapted to the patient's abilities to provide an adequate level of difficulty to maximize the effectiveness of rehabilitation and to keep the patient's engagement high. The patient's abilities may change over time and an adjustment of the difficulty is required. We present here a mixed approach for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment based on three modules which take into consideration different key factors: the patient's physical abilities estimated from the data gathered from exercises carried out recently, his/her current capability in the current exer-game and his/her emotional state. The system has been integrated inside an at-home rehabilitation platform and preliminary results are encouraging in terms of usability and capability to set a proper level of difficulty.