Hemi

What it does

Hemi is a therapeutic toy that motivates children with arm-hand motor disabilities to continue exercising at home in an entertaining way. It consists of physical controllers and a digital platform with therapeutic games to improve their hand motor skills.

Your inspiration

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common physical disability in childhood, it is caused by damage to the brain and has no cure. Hemiplegia, where half of the body has difficulty with voluntary movement, is the most common presentation of CP. Studies show that continuous arm-hand rehabilitation is crucial for these kids to improve their quality of life. Specialists recommend additional home therapy to extend the therapeutic benefits. However, there is a lack of continuity of progress in the home environment due to low motivation or unengaging therapy tools. Therefore, I asked myself: how can we make home therapy more playful for these kids?

How it works

Hemi is composed of physical controllers and a digital platform with games. By interacting with the controllers, kids can improve their hand motor skills while playing digital games designed to allow the repetition of hand movements with therapeutic effect. The main component is a motion sensor ball that uses Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor technology. By attaching different handles and knobs to it and placing the ball into different cases, the child can build different types of controllers. Each controller includes two different handles or knobs to encourage children to exercise a variety of hand grips and hand movements. In addition, a point-based reward system is used to motivate children, they will also have different levels to overcome to keep the games interesting and challenging. By turning repetitive training into playful therapy exercises, hemi makes long-term therapy possible for children without even knowing they are exercising.

Design process

The topic was approached with a user-centered design process to understand the field of rehabilitation in children with hemiplegia motor disabilities and explore how design can spark motivation and playfulness in this context. The solution was developed through extensive research including field research to rehabilitation centers, observations of therapy sessions with kids and interviews with specialists (psychologists, occupational and physiotherapist) as well as with parents. During the creative phase of the project, different workshops were hosted to bring in input from other designers and generate a variety of ideas to broaden the spectrum. Several design directions took shape during the process, they were evaluated and validated with specialists and parents and the most prominent one was later tested with kids. The design exploration was carried out with a mix of quick sketches and iterative physical mockups. This allowed me to try out ideas early in the process, make them more tangible when presenting them to specialists and parents and get an understanding of the targeted hand movements while interacting with the object. To present the final result, a physical high-fidelity model was made using rapid prototyping methods.

How it is different

Hemi is a unique solution that bridges the gap of toys and therapeutic devices for young children with arm-hand motor disabilities. It was designed as a flexible and modular system to be easily upgraded, making it more sustainable and accessible for the home environment. By adding new attachments and cases, but still using the same motion sensor ball component, it gives the possibility to create new controllers to exercise other arm-hand movements without adding too many extra costs. The digital content can be upgraded with new games suitable for different kids’ ages to keep them engaged over time. Hemi provides parents with a variety of fun therapeutic games for different hand movements, so they do not have to stress planning all the exercises beforehand, which was pointed out during my research to be stressful and time consuming for parents. In consequence, a lot of families struggled to continue exercising in the home environment.

Future plans

I would like to get fundings and find a collaboration partner to further develop this project since it has a lot of potential as a therapeutic toy for hemiplegic children and related conditions. Even though the feasibility of the concept was validated with specialists and parents in the field, further prototyping of digital games and testing with children with hemiplegia would be needed as a next step. In addition, it would be beneficial to further explore how to support parents by showing the child’s progress and tracking the child’s activity dedicated to therapy at home. This data could potentially be shared with therapists.

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