Gamification in Rehabilitation: The Role of Subjective Experience in a Multisensory Learning Context – A Narrative Review

Game-based approaches are emerging in many fields, such as education, social sciences, marketing and government. Most studies debate its role in consolidating learning, guided by both internal and external rewards.

These approaches are also being applied in rehabilitation, where patients must undergo a re-learning process of motor gestures after an injury to a body structure. In physiotherapy, much importance is given to analytical-functional movement aspects, but less to the recovery of the complete experience, including motivation, perception, and emotional experience of the patient during the process.

The aim of this narrative review is to investigate the role of subjective experience in the application of gamification in physiotherapy, considering the added value it provides to recovery by involving neural structures, not just motor functions. By analyzing the most investigated aspects in using gamification in rehabilitation, we will outline the primary methods of investigation into the engagement and emotions involved in the process.

Through a selection of scientific articles found on main databases, we identified articles investigating the patient’s experience. The analysis of these articles was based on aspects related to the recovery of movement, the technology used, as well as the methods of investigation and collection of qualitative data regarding the emotions and perceptions of patients during the gamification experience.

The results are divided into two primary topics. Overall, this review supports the idea that gamification could represent a rehabilitation approach integrating physiotherapy, more suitable for the final stages of recovery, such as returning to work or sports.