Rehabilitation is a long journey for children who have to deal with it: day by day kids have to take on new challenges, find motivation in order not to give up facing obstacles and gradually achieve their goals.

Rehabilitation is a patient-centered path: each child has different needs related to both their prognosis and their personal traits; each one follows a different path – sometimes steep, others gentle – and difficulties often come up beside the starting confusion. This is why supporting their motivation is a key factor in order to reach rehabilitative goals.

This is the main purpose of ARIEL.

ARIEL is meant to be an environment for sharing spaces, technologies, people and know-how between the Department of Computing, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering (Genoa University) and the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation (Gaslini Children Hospital).

The Lab aims at designing exergames based on automated analysis of nonverbal language, interactive movement sonification and multimodal interfaces to support tradition Physical Therapy in order to increase motivation in motor/cognitive impaired children.

Gameplay is a powerful means for motivation thanks to its ability to entertain with challenging variety of game options and multisensorial feedback that help children in understanding the consequences of their movements.

This is why and interdisciplinary team made up of clinicians, therapists, computer engineers, human factors professionals, experts from the humanities and the arts, and of course caregivers works together to make available to children tailored instruments based on Interactive Computer Play, aimig at building an empowered, inclusive and playful environment.