Paper
Mobile Activation Games for Rehabilitation and Recreational Activities
- Authors:
- Antti Koivisto; Sari Merilampi; Kristian Kiili; Juho Salli; Andrew Sirkka
- Abstract
- Social isolation and lack of exercise have become serious problems that people face in assisted living conditions. One of the reasons is a lack of resources - funds and professional staff. In this paper, a new recreation and self-rehabilitation tool – a mobile exergame - is developed to provide a partial solution to the problem. Mobile exergames are played with a mobile phone by body movements, thus providing both physical and mental exercise. The games were tested with groups of older adults and people with intellectual disabilities, and tailored for these particular user groups. The gaming situations were followed by the researchers and members of the professional staff. After the gaming events, the test groups and the members of the professional staff concerned were interviewed in order to obtain background information on the participants and their experiences with the games. Both user groups responded well to the games. The results of the test event for persons with learning disabilities imply that the game events provided a new recreation session: a social event with light exercise and cognitive stimuli. Likewise, the older adults’ overall experiences of mobile phone controlled gaming appeared to be a successful experiment, offering a potential tool for self-motivated rehabilitation and recreation. However, further development of the exergame concept will require dedicated collaboration with game designers, health care professionals and the user groups.
- Keywords
- Recreation; Rehabilitation; Older Adults; Intellectually Disabled; Exergames; Mobile Technology
- StartPage
- 122
- EndPage
- 132
- Doi
- 10.5963/PHF0203001