The Mobile RehApp™: an AR-based mobile game for ankle sprain rehabilitation Jaime Andres Garcia mHealth Laboratory, iNEXT University of Technology Sydney, FEIT Sydney, Australia Jaime.A.GarciaMarin@student.uts.edu.au Karla Felix Navarro mHealth Laboratory, iNEXT University of Technology Sydney, FEIT Sydney, Australia Karla.FelixNavarro@uts.edu.au Abstract—People struggle to recover from injuries due to the lack of commitment to their rehabilitation exercises as they are often boring. Recent approaches that involve the use of interactive video games have shown positive results in exercising as users engage in physical activity while playing a game. For example Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect based games have shown to be effective in the treatment of post stroke patients. Yet, there are not tools in the market that offer portable rehabilitation exercises in the form of interactive games. The work presented in this paper focuses on the development of the Mobile RehApp™, an augmented reality based application for mobile devices designed for therapeutic support that aims to assist physiotherapists and patients on ankle sprain rehabilitation. Keywords—augmented reality, mobile augmented reality, ankle sprain rehabilitation, exergames, mobile games, serious games for health, gamification, games for rehabilitation, lower limbs. I. INTRODUCTION Physical exercise has shown to be one of the most effective ways to improve well-being and quality of life. Working out is becoming a must in the modern society not only because of the health improvement benefits but also as a means to rehabilitate from injuries [1-3]. Similarly, passive and active exercises are beneficial for the development of muscles, tissues and a strong skeletal structure [4]. More importantly, regular physical activity has shown to dramatically reduce the risk of diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke [3]. There are however some risks inherent in the practicing of a sport that could lead to suffering injuries such as contusions, sprains or even fractures [1-3]. In a comprehensive study conducted by the School of Medicine at the University of Rochester, Football was shown to be the most common sport of injury with 1185 out of 4551 cases of injuries surveyed over a 7 year period [5]. This is 12 times the number of injuries seen in the next most common sport of injury, which is basketball with 126 cases. More importantly, it was found that the most common areas injured were the knee and ankle, where sprains and strains were shown to be the most common injury with 949 cases for males and 194 for females. These injuries can become problematic and recurrent if not treated correctly [3]. Despite the fact that physical rehabilitation can help to recover from injuries, it can also be tedious and boring. This is mainly attributed to the exercises not appealing to most patients, and the inconvenience of having to keep their health constantly monitored and reassessed through periodical visits to the specialist. More importantly the inappropriate execution of the prescribed exercises may affect negatively the rehabilitation process. One of the ways through which this can be improved is the use of technology that provides appropriate visual feedback allowing the patient to perform the exercises adequately [6]. For instance, the work of to Shull et al [7], use visual clues to provide accurate biomechanical feedback on user’s performance during gait retaining therapy. Similarly, the use of virtual reality technology in lower limbs rehabilitation showed positive results in delivering training exercises as well as measuring the effectiveness of the treatment [8]. These new rehabilitation technologies can bring new aspects and elements on diagnosis and treatment in order to cooperate with other disciplines and enhance the benefits for the parties [9]. However to facilitate this type of feedback, specialized equipment and trained personnel are often required, hence limiting its use in a laboratory or clinical settings [6]. In this paper we describe the development of the Mobile RehApp™, a game application for mobile devices that aims to assist physiotherapists and patients on ankle sprain rehabilitation in a portable and cost-efficient manner. The Mobile RehaApp uses Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) to deliver range of motion (ROM) exercises as well as monitor the user’s performance in a form of a game. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a brief summary of related work in the field of augmented reality applications for health and rehabilitation. In Section 3, the methodology of this study is presented. Section 4 describes the design process and the aspects that were considered throughout the development process. Finally, the discussion and conclusions can be found in Section 5 and 6. II. RELATED WORK Augmented Reality (AR) and Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) are fast growing technologies that are being applied to different fields including, business, marketing and gamming. It can be described as an augmented virtualization of the real world or environment by over imposing computer-generated inputs such as graphics, video, sound and GPS information. AR and MAR technologies are being adopted and used for a whole 978-1-4799-4823-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE