Cristian Gómez, Doctor in Computer Engineering

Cristian Gomez Portes, doctoral student AIR research group, defended today, December 18, 2023, his doctoral thesis entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Immersive Systems Techniques for Precision Physical Rehabilitation“, directed by doctors David Vallejo Fernández and Carlos González Morcillo. The evaluating panel was made up of Mr. Manuel Palomo Duarte (University of Cádiz), Carmen Lacave Rodero (University of Castilla-La Mancha) and Nelly Bencomo (University of Durham).

The doctoral thesis proposes a set of rehabilitation solutions and environments aimed at facilitating the physical therapy of patients suffering from neurological diseases, presented through a series of publications in indexed scientific journals and international conferences. As a novelty, these proposals are based on the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques, to offer personalized treatment, and through the application of immersive technologies, to artificially recreate an environment that fully involves the patient in rehabilitation. This customization revolves around the definition of a specialized language called Personalized Exergame Language (PEL), which is used to define exercises based on the patient's condition and as a basis for automating their generation in the rehabilitation environments where they are used. The validation of these proposals has been carried out through various evaluations carried out with patients, which has allowed the initial proposals to be improved and evolved throughout this research. To this end, different dimensions related to the impact of motivation in performing the exercises, usefulness, ease of use and the determination of patients when using the different proposals have been analyzed.

Congratulations to both Cristian and his directors for such excellent research work.