Memory Game

Traditional games are generally used as a medium for stimulating memory retrieval, cognition, and social activity. These games, in combination with interactive storytelling, can be used in a therapeutic context by supporting positive reminiscence. Niedderer et al. created an interactive board game where people with mild to moderate dementia can improve their well-being by enhancing self-empowerment and social engagement. 

Niedderer, Kristina, et al. "This is Me: Evaluation of a boardgame to promote social engagement, wellbeing and agency in people with dementia through mindful life-storytelling." Journal of Aging Studies 60 (2022): 100995. 

Torrente et al. performs a conceptual review on designing serious games that can help students with cognitive impairments. Creating virtual worlds that can be used as a safe learning environment in which students can freely explore at their own pace while being in the zone of optimal flow for knowledge improvement. This can have a positive impact on students with attention deficit, which is usually a disability that can severely hamper learning. In our use case, people affected by dementia tend to show a decline in attention and reasoning abilities. Research has shown that if people with dementia play games that stimulate reasoning and recall by creating a conducive learning environment, their cognitive capabilities tend to improve over time.  

 Torrente, Javier, et al. "Designing serious games for adult students with cognitive disabilities." Neural Information Processing: 19th International Conference, ICONIP 2012, Doha, Qatar, November 12-15, 2012, Proceedings, Part IV 19. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012.

Kartheka et al. investigated the impact of COSMA games on the emotional changes in people with early dementia. Their study indicates that these games tend to trigger specific positive responses such as 'keenness' and 'confidence' whilst decreasing certain negative responses such as 'irritable' and 'anxiety'. As the game progresses, people with dementia showed signs of reduced fear and anxiety, which are common emotions that occur due to the degrading nature of their disease. This was possible due to the games having positive stimulants such as family and friends-based pleasant memories and familiar game activities. 

Bojan, Kartheka, et al. "The effects of playing the COSMA cognitive games in dementia." (2021).

Groenewoud et al. showed that there is a potential for people with dementia to play casual games on a tablet as a pleasant and meaningful recreational activity. Their study revealed positive experiences such as a sense of achievement, sense of connection and belonging, feeling intellectually stimulated and improved self esteem. Negative experiences included low failure, annoyance and a sense of insecurity. It is important to note that games do not account for all the possible physical and cognitive impairments that people with dementia might have and that it is essential to know these limitations before creating such games.

Groenewoud, H., de Lange, J., Schikhof, Y., Astell, A., Joddrell, P. and Goumans, M. (2017) People with dementia playing casual games on a tablet. Gerontechnology, 16 (1). pp. 37-47. ISSN 1569-111X Available at https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/75404/