Many Cues, Few Clues: Identifying Design Opportunities for Digital Cues in Physical Rehabilitation Processes

Cueing is defined as the use of external temporal or spatial stimuli to facilitate the initiation and continuation of movement. For gait rehabilitation, cues can take the form of multimodal stimuli, providing metrics and instructions for patients to correct their movements, and can be used in multiple contexts and objectives. Therefore, the design space of interactive systems for rehabilitation is quite broad and there is a lack of systematic guidance for designers who are interested in creating and evaluating novel assistive tools. We performed a systematic literature review on the usage of cues in gait rehabilitation. In this paper, we present the preliminary results of this review, focusing on the use of digital and non-digital cues combined with mobility aid such as crutches. We discuss some considerations for future studies evaluating the design of assistive devices in physical rehabilitation and provide initial recommendations for context-adaptive digital cues, opening new perspectives for tailored and personalised gait training and rehabilitation.