Breathing+: A Game-based System for Enhancing Respiratory Training and Motivation

Breathing difficulties, such as shortness of breath or rapid breathing, can significantly harm health and diminish the quality of life. Breathing exercises are widely recognized for their effectiveness in resolving such difficulties. They increase lung function, ease discomfort, and alleviate stress. However, current breathing-assisted methods, such as the incentive spirometer, do not accurately track the duration and frequency of training despite their advantages. Furthermore, the process of performing breathing exercises is tedious over time, making users feel bored and reducing their motivation. Thus, we presented Breathing+, a breathing video game designed to address these limitations by providing a series of game challenges. Breathing+ incorporated sensors to detect breathing signals and provided users with real-time feedback on a screen. According to the experimental results, Breathing+ achieved a breathing recognition accuracy of 95%. In addition, the response time to the user’s breathing was around 0.23 s.