iSpine：改善孩童脊椎健康的體感互動系統

Abstract

脊椎側彎(scoliosis)是指患者的脊椎有不正常的側向曲線（有時會伴隨脊椎旋轉）的一種症狀。它可能會引發神經壓迫、容易不時沒有原因以及解決方案的腰酸背痛、畸形的外表等併發症，並且根據先前的研究指出，有些國家甚至有高達12%的人口患有脊椎測彎。因此即早教導那些，骨骼還在發育中並且生活的習慣還正在養成的孩童正確的脊椎保健概念是非常重要的。而現在的脊椎保健教育主要都是依賴課本，但是課本的內容非常稀少並且很難激起孩童的學習興趣。因此我們與孩童還有諸多脊椎保健教育相關領域的專家一起合作，設計出了一個以Kinect作為身體偵測器的寓教於樂系統iSpine，它以體感互動的方式讓孩童去做治療性運動以及學習脊椎保健的概念，來改善孩童的脊椎健康。我們的系統結合了獎勵機制、寵物劇情去激勵使用者，並找了七個學童進行了四週的使用者測試。那些孩童的測試結果顯示出: 1) 明顯的改善了他們的身體對稱性 (ROM) – 一個臨床診斷脊椎測彎與否的重要數據 – 對稱性的差異從19◦ 進步到 7◦，2) 回答相關的脊椎保健題目的正確率從本來的78% 明顯進步到 94% 3) 喜愛iSpine的程度遠大於原本的脊椎教學課程 4) 明顯的表現出每天都想使用iSpine。

Scoliosis is a medical condition in which a person’s spine is abnormally curved. It could lead to permanent nerve damage, unprovoked pain, and deformed appearances, and afflicts up to 12% of the population according to recent studies. While early spinal health education is especially important for children and adolescents and their developing bones and habits, current education primarily relies on textbooks and has limited student motivation and engagement. We present iSpine, a Kinect-based edutainment system co-designed with children and domain experts for improving spinal health through motion-based therapeutic exercises and educational content. Our system incorporates a reward system and a pet-based storyline to motivate users and was conducted over a 4-week field study with 7 children. Results showed that children had: 1) significantly improved their asymmetry in range of motion (ROM) – an important indicator for diagnosing scoliosis – from 19◦ to 7◦, 2) significantly improved their scores on spinal health concepts from 78% to 94%, 3) strongly favored iSpine to the current spinal health curriculum, and 4) showed strong interest in using iSpine daily.