Cognitive mobile games for memory impaired older adults

Abstract

Purpose – Cognitive self-rehabilitation lacks updated means and tools. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of cognitively simulating mobile games on the cognitive skills and recreation of older people with memory impairment. Design/methodology/approach – Mobile games that require cognitive skills were developed. The games were tested by memory-impaired older adults, average age of 90. Gaming interventions took place for three months on a daily basis. Game outcomes were automatically recorded and user feedback was collected by interviews. The progress of the testees was also evaluated by means of Trial Making Test A. Findings – Improvement in game scores was found. Other significant effects of game play were enhanced recreation and self-managed activity level. Game play did not have any effect on the traditional Trail Making Test results but the results of the Trail Making game showed improvement. The Trail Making game also showed a large variance in daily scores, which implies that perform...