Audio feedback in music : a study of experience of audio feedback in music for rehabilitation treatment for fear avoidance

Abstract: Rehabilitation treatments used for fear avoidance need to be further developed to be more adaptable to the different needs of patients. Fear avoidance is a condition whereby people avoid performing certain movements because they afraid of the pain they will experience or think they will experience from performing the movement. There is a need for exercises in fear-avoidance treatments to be fun, motivating and effective. This is to encourage the patients to continuously do exercises in the treatment. In this master thesis project, the experience of having audio feedback in music whilst performing exercises is investigated. A proof-of-concept prototype using one way of presenting audio feedback was built and used in experiments to investigate the experience. The prototype was built in Java and uses a camera-based motion capture system and markers to track movements. The results show that 100% of the participants thought about movements they had made when feedback was given, 60% claimed the feedback made them feel more aware of how they should move, and 70% said that the music with audio feedback was fun and/or exciting. The conclusion is that the use of music encouraged the participants to perform the exercises, and the feedback made them more conscious of the movements in the exercises and they reflect about the movements they made.