Abstract

Lack of physical activity is prevalent in today’s society despite the fact that not getting enough physical activity contributes to different physical and mental conditions. Exercises are also used as physical therapy for various injuries and disabilities. Yet, many people do not commit to regular exercise routines or frequently do not adhere to their rehabilitation routines due to difficulties with scheduling regular appointments with professionals, the high expenses of personal trainers and physical therapists, and even just boredom with the prescribed regimens.
In this dissertation, we first studied the impact of push notifications and gamification on people’s motivation for doing regular exercises. To do this we developed a fitness mobile application, 5 mins with the ability to send custom reminder push notifications. In a preliminary study, we evaluated the effectiveness of reminder push notifications on performing fitness exercises.
In addition, we investigated the effect of multimodal cueing mechanisms on physiotherapy exercises. We developed a wrist rehabilitation mobile application that works with the NeblinaTM wearable sensor. A user study with 10 users was done to assess the impact of gamification and cueing on subjects’ performance of basic wrist rehabilitation exercises.
The result of our experiments shows the importance of fine-tuning both notifications and cueing strategies in exercise and rehabilitation. Whereas well-timed notifications and multimodal cueing can provide motivation and help encourage an end-user, poor methods may discourage users from being active and performing their exercises correctly.