Monday Morning Gamification: Doctor Kinect

Here’s an interesting story…

We’ve gone through many of the best modified uses of Kinect in the past. Cool as many of them may be, holding a stick so it shows up on-screen as a lightsaber isn’t the most practical use of this technology. A professor at the University of Minnesota has found a new potential use for Kinect that Microsoft may not have ever imagined, and it’s one “that could change medicine.”

After laughing at the prospect of purchasing a Kinect for research, in so doing, Professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos has saved researchers more than $100,000, The Minnesota Daily reports. Several Kinect devices are being used as a video monitoring system to keep an eye on children playing with toys as part of a collaboration to diagnose mental disorders such as OCD and ADD. Data from the cameras is tweaked and then given to doctors.

“As a doctor, you don’t have tangible data,” Papanikolopoulos explained. “We try to provide the tools in order to back up claims of a mental disorder.”