Scoping Review on Gaming as Occupation for Upper Limb Impairment, 282 Studies

A 2026 scoping review by Marlies Wanasili, published on figshare, explores the use of gaming as a meaningful occupation for adults with upper limb impairment. The review analyzed 282 studies, finding only 10 specifically addressed occupational engagement, with a predominant focus on stroke populations and hospital settings. The dataset, shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license, includes information on 157 different gaming systems and 85 outcome measures used across the reviewed literature.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the distribution of gaming interventions across different upper limb conditions based on the review's population data.
• Identifying common outcome measures for activity and participation used in gaming-based rehabilitation studies.
• Mapping the types of gaming systems (e.g., dedicated robots, commercial consoles) employed in therapeutic and occupational contexts.
• Investigating qualitative themes like social connection and perceived improvement reported in gaming studies.

Strengths

• The review is methodologically structured, following the Arksey and O’Malley framework and Joanna Briggs Institute protocol.
• Provides concrete counts: 282 studies reviewed, 237 focused on stroke, 150 conducted in hospitals.
• Catalogues a wide range of tools and measures, listing 157 different gaming systems and 85 outcome measures.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The data scope is limited to a scoping review summary (86.3 KB), not the full-text studies.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Scoping review conducted via systematic searches of Medline, CINAHL, IEEE Xplore, and Embase.

Time Range

Temporal coverage of the included studies is not specified in the provided metadata.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-03 19:00:02; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Spatial coverage of the included studies is not specified in the provided metadata.