University of Twente Student Theses
Creating a feedback system with the Myo Armband, for home training for frail older adults
Slutter, M.W.J. (2017) Creating a feedback system with the Myo Armband, for home training for frail older adults.
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| Abstract: | Although staying physically active is very important for frail older adults, two thirds of the older adults in the Netherlands does not exercise enough. Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) offers older adults the opportunity to perform exercises at home. Their current Life project offers older adults these opportunities by online explanatory videos and text on how to perform exercises that train the overall fitness. This project however, lacks feedback to the older adult about their performance at the moment. Therefore, the research question for this project is: “How to design and implement a feedback system, using the Myo Armband, to provide feedback to frail older adults on their performance, regarding the strength exercises related to the upper-body?”. In order to give feedback to the user, the performance of the user should be measured. The Myo armband (by Thalmic Labs Inc.) offers many capabilities to serve as crucial sensing element in the to be developed feedback system. Through background research more information on how to provide feedback and the opportunities and limitations of the Myo has been gathered. This information, combined with information gathered through brainstorm sessions, and interviews, has led to several application ideas, after which the most feasible application was chosen. The outcome of this selection process was the application idea to develop a game to provide live feedback to the older adult and at the same time motivate the older adult. The most important requirements of this game are: showing the effort of the user, keeping track of the amount of times the exercises has been performed, providing mostly positive feedback, and to stay honest towards the older adult about their performance. Positive feedback encourages and motivates the older adult, where the honest feedback reminds the user to perform the exercise correctly. The developed game meets all the above announced requirements. After a functional and user test on the developed prototype, it could be concluded that the users had positive experiences with the system. Users got motivated by and enjoyed the game, while the game had a similar usability rating as the original Life program. Moreover, when using the game, the older adults were similarly secure about their performance, as with using the original Life program. However, some users were confused by the game, because of the occurrence of bugs and the lack of explanatory text. Overall, the game was well received by the older adults. For future development, the bugs should be fixed and more explanatory text should be added, in order to prevent the occasional confusion among the older adults. Moreover, the game could be made more dynamic and since many users were enthusiastic, more games for different exercises could be made. At last, the effect of sound in the game could also be researched, as sound can be a clear way of providing feedback. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Clients: | Roessingh, Enschede, Netherlands |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Subject: | 54 computer science |
| Programme: | Creative Technology BSc (50447) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/75524 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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