Personalized Exergaming for the Elderly Through an Adaptive Exergame Platform

Abstract

Exergaming technologies have rejuvenated the perspective of using game environments as facilitators of exercising adherence for health promotion. The entertaining character of exergames and the high accessibility of modern pervasive computing technologies have enabled a more sustained embracement of this niche technology, even by elderly adults. In spite of this view, personalization remains an open research issue with anemic solutions even though it represents a critical aspect to enhance exergaming usefulness. This paper explores notions for building an adaptive exergame platform that employs off-the-shelf body tracking sensors to collect movement data during gameplay and creates real-time game adaptations based on performance metrics and machine learning models. The adaptation layer of the platform provides the system intelligence for data analysis capable of adapting the gameplay in terms of adjustments of game parameters to match the skills of each player, thus resulting in a personalized game experience. The importance of an adaptive platform in the exergaming domain of the elderly is discussed and methods for its implementation are suggested.