Gamification & education

In this third part of the presentation, we’re going to discuss about the use of gamification and education for healthy aging. As you can see, in the slide 12, when we are speaking about game technology, doesn’t have to be necessarily just a video game. This is an example of robot, research actually did talked it. And the elderly patients in nursing home they have to take care of. This robot, actually what it does is to improve the emotional support and social skills of the elderly patients. The patients they have to take care of the pet, then the pet will react differently. I mean that way, its given responsibilities and also increasing social interactions among the patients living in nursing home.

This pattern has actually been tested in our city and in that paper that I have put in the comments, you can take a look into the psychosocial efforts of using this type of robot. And out of curiosity, there is one episode in “The Simpsons” that focus on this robot and it’s very funny so I recommend you to watch it.

As for education, I would like to mention the next slide. The importance of taking into account the needs of the caregivers. Often, caregivers, they are dealing with very complicate diseases with patient with multiple chronic conditions and is not very simple. Since the education needs are very high, you can even see now a days, massive online courses like this one from Johns Hopkins university about living with dementia. Actually healthy caregivers to understand the needs of patients with dementia is very interesting. To join one of those asking online courses and especially see the interaction from caregivers, and they are making questions. So I invite you to join this course or similar ones.

Then in the slide 14, I would like to speak about the use of exergames. Exergames are video games that promote physical activity. Meaning that you have to move to be able to play the game. There are very popular video console with that is that the wii from nintendo. Where by doing movements, you can play. We develop a game in project called “Game Map.” where actually the elderly users they have to perform exercises to improve their balance, strength, etc. And those still wearing a movement designed by physiotherapists in the clinical balance etc. To prevent fall. We run several experiments overall daily useability was very high, the patients found it very motivating and socially engaging.

However, during the activity, the person were not positive. We don’t know exactly why, but we have a strong feeling that the way it was implemented in the clinic may have affected the motivational aspects of the game. If you design a video game to promote physical activity in the elderly, and you try in a senior club. That’s very easy to engage the patient, to motivate them, but then when you try to move it to the clinic, it’s very different because then it’s not an environment for entertaining. They may feel more controlled, and they fun that they may have have in the senior club is not the same when you are at hospital or clinic.

So those are aspects that we need to take into consideration always when we design technology for the elderly. Another challenge would be the cultural issues. For example, if you are using this type of exergame with the “Kinect”. “Kinect” is the technology we use, it requires you have to play in a very large room. In countries like Spain, where I am from. Actually, that’s not possible because the rooms tend to be very small. It’s very hard and unsafe to play.