Felipe Quezada

Injuries, accidents, and degenerative diseases are just some of the causes that can lead someone to need physiotherapy rehabilitation exercises. However, despite its effectiveness in returning to normal functioning or mitigating pain, many people give up this type of treatment due to lack of motivation.

Felipe Quezada experienced this reality himself after suffering a motorcycle accident that forced him to spend more than six months going to rehabilitation facilities, both public clinics and private ones in Chile, his native country. Given his experience in the design of video games, the solution for the lack of motivation came on its own: why not develop therapeutic video games specifically designed to motivate patients to continue with therapy? This is how Kinemotion was born, a project that has turned Quezada into one of the winners of Innovators Under 35 Latin America 2018 of MIT Technology Review.

On the one hand, Quezada has developed a platform for therapists that hosts different types of video games, each one designed for a specific task that needs to be exercised. Furthermore, all are customizable for the needs of each patient. On the other hand, a Kinect-type sensor records the user's movements and analyzes them to measure the level of performance and progress. "For instance, one game makes the patient use hip movements to fly an airplane. Another game meant for improving the gait consists on controlling a character who has to carry some apples to a basket," the designer explains. 

At the moment the system is being validated in two centers, one in Santiago de Chile and another in Concepción (both in Chile). "Older people have adapted better than expected. They like to play, they become like children and want to go back to therapy to play again," Quezada says. The young Chilean hopes that the studies live up to his expectations and that his product truly improves the motivation of patients to perform rehabilitation tasks.

The head of the Department of Incubation and Business Support of Poznan Science and Technology Park (Poland), Anna Tórz, jury member of Innovators Under 35 Latin America 2018, values that "the entrepreneurial background of Quezada connects with a project with such significant potential to improve the quality of life of patients in rehabilitation."