Collaboration Around an Interactive Tabletop in Rehabilitation Settings

Acquired brain injury, mostly after a stroke or an accident, is a hard cut in a person’s life and often followed by a long process of rehabilitation with many ups and downs. Therapy can be perceived as monotonous due to the (therapeutically necessary) repetitive nature of the tasks. Therapy nowadays does not only involve conventional settings but often additional computer-based exercises that allow the computer to take over time-consuming routine tasks. In addition to the time factor, computer-assisted therapy can lead to higher patient motivation. Especially, when computer-based rehabilitation allows for collaborative settings, a positive effect on motivation can be noted. Collaboration can be easily facilitated with tabletop computers because they can be interacted with by multiple people in parallel. Modern tabletops can process a high number of concurrent interactions and the user interfaces can be designed in a way that allows for relevant (interactive) elements to be aligned towards different directions. This chapter presents an approach towards rehabilitation using an interactive tabletop in collaborative settings, covering the therapeutic motivation behind as well as aspects related to interaction design and modalities.