Persons who have suffered from stroke participate in occupational therapy to help recover
occupational functionality, but therapy is expensive and maximal recovery often depends on
repetitive, tedious exercises to be done by patients both in therapy sessions and on their
own. Often patients do not have the resources or motivation to complete the treatment
required to give them the best results. This thesis is presented as part of a larger project in
which we aim to enable occupational therapists to use the Looking Glass programming
environment to create computer games for their patients that can be played inexpensively
and effectively, both inside and outside of therapy sessions. Looking Glass will allow for
occupational therapists with little or no programming background to write customized
games for their patients. Through using Wii remotes and webcams to track movement and
translate it to a computer game, this solution has the potential to provide a more engaging
and interesting way for patients to correctly do repetitive movements without needing
constant therapist supervision or expensive and complicated equipment. It also can provide
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highly customizable and adjustable game settings to accommodate for the wide range of
impairments that can result from stroke. This thesis presents a study of the needs of
occupational therapists and stroke patients who compose the user base of the project and
implications for the design, the development of a webcam color tracking system to be used
for movement tracking in games, and an application to be used by therapists to assign
specific, patient-tailored calibrations and game levels as part of treatments and to track and
organize improvement statistics. These are all key components required for the successful
development of the overall project.