FLEXCORE - Gamified Joint Rehabilitation: an Interactive Approach for Neuromuscular Patients

Rehabilitation is essential but for many patients, it’s repetitive, boring, and easy to skip.

During our hospital internship, we met a young boy with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome who dreaded his daily hand exercises. His parents shared one important detail: he loved playing video games. That sparked an idea what if therapy could be disguised as play?

FLEXCORE was born from that thought: a gamified joint rehabilitation system that turns wrist and finger exercises into an exciting, interactive video game complete with real-time motion, pressure, and temperature monitoring to keep therapy safe, fun, and effective.

Pressure sensor, pressure bulb, Gyroscope module, Seeed Studio Grove I²C High Accuracy Temperature Sensor, Laptop or PC, microcontroller, gloves.

The idea for FLEXCORE started during our internship at a hospital. One day, we met the parents of a young boy suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The doctor had advised him to do daily ball-squeezing exercises to improve his hand strength. But there was a problem he didn’t enjoy it at all. He would skip it because it felt boring and repetitive. His parents mentioned something important “He loves playing video games.” That’s when a thought struck us what if rehabilitation exercises could be turned into a fun and interactive video game? If patients could play a game while unknowingly doing their therapy exercises, it could change the way rehabilitation is experienced. That’s how FLEXCORE was born.

In our rehabilitation game, the player controls a spacecraft using wrist movements adduction, abduction, flexion, and extension to move it up, down, left, and right. Squeezing a small pressure bulb makes the spacecraft shoot and destroy enemies. The beauty of this system is that these actions aren’t just gaming moves they double as therapeutic wrist and finger rehabilitation exercises. The squeezing motion works like the classic prescribed ball exercise but makes it engaging and motivating. On the technical side, we built the game in Visual Studio by modifying an open-source Python game. We integrated sensor inputs from our device so that wrist and finger actions directly control the spacecraft, replacing traditional keyboard controls. This blend of rehabilitation and gaming, backed by accessible open-source code, makes the system both innovative and adaptable for further development.

FLEXCORE is not just about fun it’s about smart therapy.

It constantly tracks and displays three key rehabilitation parameters:

1. Degree of Motion – Tracks wrist movement range to measure improvement.
2. Pressure – Monitors finger strength using the pressure bulb.
3. Body Temperature – Measured using the Seeed Studio Grove I²C High Accuracy Temperature Sensor.

Why track temperature?

Neuromuscular and post-stroke patients can overheat during long sessions.

If the temperature crosses a safe threshold, FLEXCORE can:

1. Warn the therapist
2. Reduce game difficulty
3. Prompt cooldown breaks

This ensures therapy is safe, personalized, and effective.

Rehabilitation often fails not because the exercises don’t work, but because patients especially children lose motivation.

FLEXCORE changes that by:

1. Turning rehab into an exciting challenge.
2. Making therapy measurable and trackable.
3. Boosting patient motivation for faster recovery.

1. Game Output
2. The player’s wrist movements control the spacecraft’s up, down, left, and right motion.
3. Squeezing the pressure bulb makes the spacecraft shoot and destroy enemies.
4. Gameplay speed and difficulty can be adjusted for different patient abilities.
5. Real-Time Rehabilitation Metrics
6. Degree of Motion – Displays the range of wrist movement.
7. Pressure Value in kPa – Shows finger grip strength.
8. Body Temperature in °C – Measured using the Seeed Studio Grove I²C High Accuracy Temperature Sensor.
9. Safety Feedback
10. temperature exceeds a safe limit, the system:
11. Displays visual alerts on the game screen.
12. Reduces game difficulty or prompts a cooldown break.

Our future vision is FLEXCORE Hybrid an upgraded version integrating:

1. Jaw muscle exercises for facial nerve injury recovery
2. Finger and wrist control in VR environments
3. Expanded patient use cases from hand injuries to speech-related muscle weakness.

With VR integration, therapy won’t just be effective it will be immersive.

FLEXCORE proves that rehabilitation doesn’t have to be repetitive or boring. By transforming wrist and finger exercises into an interactive game, it keeps patients engaged while delivering measurable, real-time feedback. The addition of temperature monitoring ensures every session is not only effective but also safe for neuromuscular and post stroke patients.

What started as a simple idea during a hospital internship has grown into a practical, patient-friendly rehabilitation tool with the potential to expand into FLEXCORE Hybrid for jaw, wrist, and finger therapy in VR.

1. Misna Abdul Manaf
2. Shamnad m
3. S. Vinayak
4. Sreejith Ramachandran
5. Guided by Dr. Remya George - Associate Professor & Head of the Department (HOD)