Heart Rate Variability in Exergaming: Feasibility and Benefits of Physiological Adaptation for Cardiorespiratory Training in Older Adults by Means of Smartwatches

Exergames are videogames that use physical movement to mediate player’s interactions with digital contents. Multiple adaptation mechanisms have been used to enhance the effectiveness of employing Exergames to promote physical exercise. One of the most interesting strategies utilizes physiological signals to infer the status of player’s cardiorespiratory responses and create real-time game adaptations. This strategy is called biocybernetic-adaptation and despite its promising potential, quantitative studies identifying measurable benefits are scarce. We developed a between-subjects study measuring the autonomic-cardiac regulation differences between conventional cardiorespiratory training methods and a physiologically modulated Exergame in a group of fifteen older adults. We used heart rate (HR) data measured through smartwatches and a floor-projection setup to encourage players to exert in targeted HR zones. We presented the analysis of the time users spent in the target zone and the Heart-Rate-Variability (HRV) in time and frequency domains during training sessions of 20 minutes length. Two time-domain (SDNN and RMSSD) and one frequency domain (VLF) HRV parameters showed significant differences, revealing lower HRV values in the physiologically adaptive condition when compared with conventional training. Our data suggests that smartwatch technology can be accurate enough to assess HRV changes, and that a HR based physiologically adaptive Exergame induces less HRV. 

Reference

Muñoz, J., Gouveia, E. R., Cameirão, M. S., & Badia, S. B. i. (2017). Heart Rate Variability in Exergaming - Feasibility and Benefits of Physiological Adaptation for Cardiorespiratory Training in Older Adults by Means of Smartwatches. In icSports 2017