Virtual Valley
Open Source Virtual Worlds and Low Cost Sensors for Physical
Rehab of Patients with Chronic Diseases
Salvador J. Romero1,2,Luis Fernandez-Luque1, José Luis Sevillano2, Lars K.Vognild1
1 Northern Research Institute, Tromsø, Norway
2 Robotics & Computer Technology for Rehabilitation Laboratory, University of Sevilla, Spain
Email: jlsevillano@us.es, salvadorjesus@gmail.com
E-Health 2009 Conference, Istanbul

Introduction
Home • Patient monitorization and follow up. Patient education
telemedicine • Home excercise
• Communication means with health care professionals
Systems
Drawbacks • Loss of motivation
• High rates of abandonment; patients give up
• Motivate patients to continue their physical rehabilitation
programs through:
Our objective • Socializing
• Serious Games
• Education and an atractive environment
2

Virtual Valley
 Approach
◦ Use of virtual worlds to develop a social
environment to do rehabilitation
 Features
◦ Virtual word deployed in our servers
◦ Controlled by sensors and consumer oriented
low-cost game controls
◦ Natural voice chat
◦ Adapted for the health of the user. Healthy users
can participate as well
◦ In-world interactive application for education,
exercise programs, and serious games
3

Virtual Valley: The Learning Center
 Documents, videos, interactive applications and conferences.
 Learn in group, comment with friends
4

Virtual Valley: The Virtual Gym
 Exercise with motion
sensors
 Personalized
exercising programs
 Hide the
advancement of
the illness
 Exercise and
socialize with
healthy people
5

Virtual Valley: The Amusement
Garden
 Serious Games
6

Virtual Valley. Software Architecture
 Components and Architecture
◦ Server-client architecture
◦ Client
 Game able PC
 Sensors and controls
◦ Server
 Standard PC for the server machine.
 Large bandwidth is needed
◦ Software
 General guidelines: Low coupling; Component oriented
7

Virtual Valley. Sensors and game
controls
 Low-cost sensors
◦ Medical sensors:
 Nonin
 Jhonson&Jhonson One Touch
◦ Game controls
 Nintendo Wii Controls
 Wii Remote, and others
 Dance pad
 Web cam and IR tracking devices
 Touch Screens
◦ Bluetooth stacks and libraries
 Bluecove, Avetana, BlueZ, Winsock, Widcomm…
8

Conclusions
It Is feasible to • Virtual worlds:
use virtual • Several, open source options. Industry
support. Fast innovations
worlds and • Motion sensors and game controllers:
sensors in • Low-cost in comparision with others
professional solutions
telemedicine • Open source libraries. New possibilities
systems • Our platform: Modular, adaptable and scalable
• Functional design is completed
• Several prototypes successfully lab-tested with
partial functionality
Ongoing work • We are working towards a stable and complete
version that we can test with healthy users and
real patients
9

Thank you!
Open Source Virtual Worlds and Low Cost Sensors for Physical
Rehab of Patients with Chronic Diseases
Salvador J. Romero1,2,Luis Fernandez-Luque1, José Luis Sevillano2, Lars K.Vognild1
1 Northern Research Institute, Tromsø, Norway
2 Robotics & Computer Technology for Rehabilitation Laboratory, University of Sevilla, Spain
Email: jlsevillano@us.es, salvadorjesus@gmail.com
E-Health 2009 Conference, Istanbul