This paper presents a gamified Virtual Reality (VR) application integrated with a second-screen Web interface to support exposure therapy for children with sensory food aversion. The system allows therapists to configure therapeutic sessions, monitor user actions in real time, and adapt the virtual environment according to the patient's responses. The Web interface records session data, including behavioral performance and, when available, biosignals such as EEG and ECG, building a historical profile for each patient. The solution was developed through a co-design process with therapists to ensure usability and alignment with therapeutic practice. Preliminary results show the system's potential to improve engagement, support therapist intervention, and enable future developments, such as the integration of real-time neurofeedback to adapt the experience based on physiological data.

Smart healthcare platforms continuously gather user data, allowing the application of artificial intelligence techniques for the adaptation of solutions, and providing acquired knowledge that can be shared among clinicians, therapists, and patients. Data analytics and machine learning techniques are used to extract information from the sampled data, generating knowledge so systems can learn from it. Simulation of therapeutic scenarios becomes possible, allowing inference of possible outcomes and providing tools for decision support. Therefore, this research focuses on the design of an AI-augmented digital twin towards adaptive serious-games therapy for people with disabilities (e.g., cerebral palsy, speech disorders, Parkinson’s disease) to provide solutions toward positive therapy results. Finding an adequate digital twin for therapy with people with disabilities is relevant, aiming at prediction and simulation in the context of using serious games for therapy engagement.

Usually, therapy is a tedious process for children as it requires repetitive exercises/tasks. A known strategy to increase engagement is to deliver therapy through games. Therefore, Fanima emerged as a serious game-based diagnosis tool co-designed with therapists’ participation for phonetic-phonological assessment of speech disorders focused on the European Portuguese language. The integration with a web platform allows real-time therapist interaction to control the game based on the classification of child vocalisations in response to gameplay requests, which follows the therapeutic structure for the intended diagnosis. A preliminary user study with six speech therapists was conducted to validate the tool’s concept and usability, responding to the therapeutic requirements. The results are positive and interesting, validating the tool in the first evaluation phase and suggesting a tendency of acceptance by more therapists.

Seriouslgames based therapeutic approaches create environments that increase the motivation of patients to achieve successful completion of therapy programs that can be demanding. The therapeutic games should be designed and configured by therapists, who should also monitor and evaluate, on a regular basis, the therapy exercises masked by the games to measure the patient's progress in treatment. Thus, there is still a demand for customizable tools by therapists toward specific groups of patients. We are developing a solution that combines serious games, NUI, and sensors, such as Kinect and Leap Motion, to address both physiotherapy and cognitive stimulation therapy. This paper presents the Web-based platform that provides the gaming solution, detailing the work in progress on the components responsible for the therapists' supervision.