Assessing the Impact of Enriched Virtual Reality on Motivation and Engagement in Stroke Rehabilitation

Abstract

Virtual reality is highly recommended for stroke rehabilitation as it was found to aid in recovery and can motivate users. While there are various virtual reality rehabilitation studies, the impact of virtual environments on rehabilitation has been less studied. This study investigates the added value of an enriched virtual environment on motivation and engagement in stroke rehabilitation. We conducted a validity study on healthy participants (N=25) in two environments: enriched virtual reality and non-enriched virtual reality. Our hypotheses are: 1) An enriched virtual environment with multisensory feedback, gamification, and adaptive function adds value to user motivation and engagement by increasing interest/enjoyment, perceived choice, value/usefulness, and relatedness of the application. 2) Motivated and engaged users spend more time or score more points in the application. The key findings of this study are that intrinsic motivation is higher in the enriched virtual environment (EVE) compared to the non-enriched virtual environment (NEVE). There are significant differences in motivation between these two environments. Furthermore, results show that more participants are engaged in the enriched virtual environment, spending more time, and scoring higher (Spearman’s ρ=0.809 ).