Designing game-based cognitive assessments for elderly adults
Abstract
Gamification is the use of game-like properties in non-game scenarios, and is applied in the design of our application to stimulate cognition, and enjoyment, which often decreases due to age-related changes. The goal of the research reported here is to develop a game, targeted for elderly citizens, that has a user-friendly interface and the ability to predict cognitive ability. This paper will introduce and evaluate a game designed based on the classic carnival game called whack-a-mole, which has the objective of a user 'hitting' a 'mole'. Our version of the game underwent a usability study where we evaluated the game in an experiment, and investigated its cognitive predictive ability. This paper will discuss the results from the experiment, detail the limitations, and propose future research.
Authors: Tiffany Tong, Mark Chignell