Effectiveness of Vibrotactile Feedback in an Exergame for Knee Joint Training

Proprioception of the knee joint is essential for locomotion; however, exergames for training and rehabiliation rarely provide specific knee joint training. In this paper, we introduce a custom-made fishing game that can be used to train knee joint control. We tested the game with (experimental group (EG)) and without (control group (CG)) vibrotactile feedback in a three day motor learning study with 16 healthy adult participants (8 male and 8 female). Both groups were able to improve in the game showing a significant increase in game score between day one (average score: EG: 21.3 points, CG: 19.4 points) and day three (average score: EG: 27.3 points, CG: 23.3 points) of the study. The accuracy of the knee joint control reported as the mean average error between a desired knee angle and the actual position of the participant improved significantly more in the group that received vibrotactile feedback, even though there was no significant difference in immersive experience during game play between both groups.This demonstrates that the suggested game can successfully be used for knee joint training in healthy participants. Further studies are needed to test whether the game can be used with patient populations.