Role and Quality of Communication in Collaborative Training for Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Abstract

Social support provided by family and friends plays an important role in the rehabilitation of people su ering from various types of disabilities, in particular, Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Unfortunately due to the necessity of spending a substantial amount of time in rehabilitation centers, most MS patients experience lower social interaction with their immediate surroundings. To overcome this, we utilize a collaborative game played over the Internet that facilitates interaction during absence. While staying at the rehabilitation center for intense and necessary training programs, patients can play this game with relatives or friends communicating through audio and/or video channels. In the research presented in this paper, we rstly investigate how patients perceived communication with a remote person. Secondly, the in uence of network quality (i.c. presence of packet loss) on this perception was analyzed. Results show that patients prefer to see their game partners while interacting remotely. When exposed to varying levels of multimedia quality, they point out that the quality of audio is relatively more important than the quality of video.