One in seven Irish children suffer from asthma. VisiBreath uniquely concentrates on the production of children’s games for a mobile phone platform, which aid in the domestic management of asthma in young children.

VisiBreath is a research project funded by Enterprise Ireland under the Research Innovation Fund at the University of Limerick. The VisiBreath research team was set up to research the feasibility of assisting child asthma sufferers to manage their asthma through the use of dedicated games on mobile handsets. A plug-in peripheral device will be required to read breath and will then be used as input for gaming on mobile phones. Games will be designed that will assist children in understanding and employing strategies for asthma management.

VisiBreath is presently developing the VisiB, a plug-in peripheral device to read breath as input for gaming on mobile phones. Using the plug-in VisiB, combined with mobile phone games, which are becoming more and more popular among children, we are designing games for mobile handsets, which will teach young children the strategies recommended by Asthma Societies to manage asthma. Our peripheral device offers more than those peripherals connected to gaming stations and therefore can change the concept of health informatics and mobile gaming.

Production involves software and hardware development combined with mobile communications technologies, the Internet, and aspects of e-learning. The VisiB peripheral and DAM games will be easily distributed and marketed through the Internet, toy/games retailers, mobile phone retailers, paper advertising, SMS, etc. VisiBreath will use the existing mobile communication networks to distribute and retail the DAM games.