Abstract
The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the differences in the reaction time and accuracy rate of three categories of subjects using our serious games. Thirty-seven subjects were divided into three groups: normal (n1 = 16), MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) (n2 = 10), and dementia—moderate-to-severe (n3 = 11) groups based on the MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination). Two serious games were designed: (1) whack-a-mole and (2) hit-the-ball. Two dependent variables, reaction time and accuracy rate, were statistically analyzed to compare elders’ performances in the games among the three groups for three levels of speed: slow, medium, and fast. There were significance differences between the normal group, the MCI group, and the moderate-to-severe dementia group in both the reaction-time and accuracy-rate analyses. We determined that the reaction times of the MCI and dementia groups were shorter compared to those of the normal group, with poorer results also observed in accuracy rate. Therefore, we conclude that our serious games have the feasibility to evaluate reaction performance and could be used in the daily lives of elders followed by clinical treatment in the future.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 50 million people have dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases every year [1]
Our approach was to compare the results of the performance of an elder individual when playing the game using neuropsychological tests of cognitive function based on the MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination)
A study was conducted by the authors of [16] in Greece to validate the performance of the MMSE, and the result proved that an MMSE score of 23/24 is a credible test for diagnosis of dementia
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 50 million people have dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases every year [1]. Dementia refers to deterioration of cognitive function in the elderly. This syndrome affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculations, learning capacity, language, and judgment. It affects individual quality of life and is a financial burden for families due to expensive costs for healthcare [2]. According to the Alzheimer’s association (2019), 36% of people aged 85 or older have Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) [3]. Dementia and other cognitive impairment diseases have become an important global issue, as the number of elderly people is increasing. Problems in cognitive abilities, such as divided attention, memory decline, etc., increase [4]
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