Motek Medical's CAREN and Body Posture: rehabilitation as a game
CAREN is a virtual reality system from Motek Medical for diagnosing and rehabilitating balance and movement. Its Body Posture application turns posture exercises into a game and won a Dutch award in 2011.
Updated
What CAREN is
CAREN stands for Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment. It is a multi-purpose, multi-sensory system for diagnosis, rehabilitation, evaluation and recording, and it measures a person's ability to balance and control movement. The system works in real time and uses virtual reality techniques to create experiences in a controlled environment that can be repeated.
Every CAREN installation consists of a motion base, motion capture, a projection screen and the D-Flow software. Motek Medical offers it for people with balance and postural disorders. The company's CAREN page today describes a dual-belt instrumented treadmill on a six-degrees-of-freedom motion base, 3D motion capture, integrated force plates and virtual reality environments, with interactive exercise-games that let patients practice real-world tasks with real-time biofeedback.
The Body Posture game
In the Body Posture application the patient mimics the postures of a hollow avatar that advances on a screen. Players reach higher levels and scores by performing well. Therapists set the input parameters for postural stability, raise the difficulty and decide how accurately a patient has to move into the posture to get positive feedback.
The application shows how immersion and motivation can raise performance, in particular for patients with balance and postural disorders who are afraid of causing pain during rehabilitation sessions. The game keeps them moving through different postures without making them conscious of being trained, and the whole scenario feels like a game. Body Posture won the Dutch Game Awards for Best Serious Game in 2011, an award that showcases the Dutch game industry.
What is true today
Motek Medical's website is online in November 2026 with a 2026 copyright line for Motek Medical B.V. It states that Motek is part of HAI4M, describes the company as setting standards for human movement research and treatment, and lists CAREN under the tagline The World's Most Advanced Biomechanical Lab.
The home page does not mention Body Posture, so the status of the game as a product is not confirmed. CAREN itself is presented as a current system. Its page lists assessment and treatment of balance and gait disorders, with conditions such as amputation, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury and vestibular disorders, and research uses in gait analysis, balance assessment and motor control and learning.
Questions and answers
What is CAREN?
CAREN, the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment, is a Motek Medical system for diagnosing, treating and recording balance and movement. It combines a motion base, motion capture, a projection screen and D-Flow software.
What does the Body Posture game do?
The patient copies the postures of an avatar that moves toward them on a screen while a therapist sets difficulty and the accuracy required for positive feedback.
Is CAREN still sold?
Motek Medical's website presents CAREN as part of its current range, under the HAI4M group. The Body Posture game is not named on the home page.