Use of Gamification for Adult Physical Rehabilitation in Occupational Therapy; A Novel Concept?

This commentary discusses the concept of 'gamification' as referred to implicitly or explicitly in the occupational therapy literature. Although occasionally noted to be a new frontier for occupational therapy, our analysis suggests that game mechanics and gamification elements are, in fact, a 'road long traveled' by occupational therapists and that gamification evokes the core aims and vision of occupational therapy. Gamification has been implicitly incorporated into the occupational therapy literature for years, and its benefit of enhancing therapeutic outcomes is evident in many instances.

Tracking the evolution of virtual reality applications to rehabilitation as a field of study.

Background: Application of virtual reality (VR) to rehabilitation is relatively recent with clinical implementation very rapidly following technological advancement and scientific discovery. Implementation is often so rapid that demonstrating intervention efficacy and establishing research priorities is more reactive than proactive. This study used analytical tools from information science to examine whether application of VR to rehabilitation has evolved as a distinct field of research or is primarily a methodology in core disciplines such as biomedical engineering, medicine and psychology.

The impact of media type on shared decision processes in third-age populations.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between the media, through which medical information was made available (e.g. digital versus printed), and the patients' desire to play an active part in a medical decision in an SDM or an ISDM-based process.

Consume, Modify, Share (CMS): The Interplay between Individual Decisions and Structural Network Properties in the Diffusion of Information.

Widely used information diffusion models such as Independent Cascade Model, Susceptible Infected Recovered (SIR) and others fail to acknowledge that information is constantly subject to modification. Some aspects of information diffusion are best explained by network structural characteristics while in some cases strong influence comes from individual decisions. We introduce reinvention, the ability to modify information, as an individual level decision that affects the diffusion process as a whole.