# Enhancing the Management of Non-Specific Neck Pain through Gamification: Design and Efficacy of a Health Application

## TL;DR

A gamified health app using motion sensing was developed to help manage chronic neck pain, showing better results than traditional methods.

## Contribution

A novel gamified motion-sensing application for cervical spine exercises was designed and shown to improve neck pain management.

## Key findings

- The app significantly reduced Neck Disability Index (NDI) scores from 1.54 to 1.24.
- Participants showed increased daily activity and compliance with exercises compared to traditional methods.

## Abstract

Chronic non-specific neck pain (CNNP) poses a substantial health and economic burden in China. This study introduces a gamified motion-sensing health application framework to address the limitations of existing health applications. The gamified cervical spine somatic exercise application employs motion capture technology alongside the smartphone’s built-in sensors to simulate accurate somatic interactions. Controlled experiments and data analyses demonstrated that the application significantly outperformed traditional text and video interventions in relieving participants’ neck pain by increasing their average daily activity and compliance with the cervical spine exercise routine. The neck pain level of the participants is quantified by the Neck Disability Index (NDI). The results from the controlled experiments demonstrate that this gamified approach significantly decreases the Neck Disability Index (NDI) score from 1.54 to 1.24, highlighting its ability to alleviate neck pain and increase user compliance.