A Long-Term User Study of an Immersive Exergame for Older Adults with Mild Dementia during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Older adults, which are affected by neurological diseases such as dementia, often suffer from cognitive and motor deficits, and, therefore, require special care and therapy. However, especially during times of a global pandemic, they are a vulnerable highrisk group that has to be kept safe, which limits their possibilities to perform cognitive or motor training, or visit places outside their homes. We developed and evaluated a motor-cognitive exergame using a human-centered design approach, in which the older adults can virtually visit known places in their city of residence in omni-directional 3D-videos using immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies. The player's goal is to take pictures of famous landmarks with a tracked wearable that replicates a physical camera. We evaluated the game during a nine weeks user study with ten older adults with mild forms of dementia in a between-subject design: (i) five players experienced the game twice a week for 15-25 minutes, and (ii) five participants in a control group, who did not play the game. The results suggest that the overall well-being of players improved and that their game performance increased. Cognitive and physical tests indicate that the test group experiencing the game improved more than the control group. All players had positive attitudes towards the game and enjoyed the welcome change.