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

Kruse, Lucie; Karaosmanoglu, Sukran; Rings, Sebastian; Ellinger, Benedikt; Apken, Daniel; Mangana, Thandiwe Feziwe; Steinicke, Frank

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

Files

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paper1006_suppmat.pdf (133.12 KB)

Date

2021

Authors

Kruse, Lucie
Karaosmanoglu, Sukran
Rings, Sebastian
Ellinger, Benedikt
Apken, Daniel
Mangana, Thandiwe Feziwe
Steinicke, Frank

Publisher

The Eurographics Association

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.

        @inproceedings{10.2312:egve.20211322
,
booktitle = {ICAT-EGVE 2021 - International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence and Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments
},
editor = {Orlosky, Jason and Reiners, Dirk and Weyers, Benjamin
},
title = {{A Long-Term User Study of an Immersive Exergame for Older Adults with Mild Dementia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
}},
author = {Kruse, Lucie and 
Karaosmanoglu, Sukran and 
Rings, Sebastian and 
Ellinger, Benedikt and 
Apken, Daniel and 
Mangana, Thandiwe Feziwe and 
Steinicke, Frank
},
year = {2021
},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association
},
ISSN = {1727-530X
},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-142-7
},
DOI = {10.2312/egve.20211322
}
}