Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of current research on digital health games and health benefits derived from game play in the home setting by an older adult population. Initially, this chapter presents the current problems of an aging population and a series of gaming trends, game genres, and technology used by older adults are described. This chapter further ascertains previous works, primarily reviews (narrative and systematic), to establish the current stance of utilizing digital games for health among older adults and assesses quality-of-life benefits. Aggregated recommendations across all the reviewed studies are listed and a comprehensive standard digital health game classification system is proposed. Games for health taxonomy and respective technologies are described, in particular the nature of engagement by users. Finally, recommendations for future research on games for health in the home are provided.
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This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine (NLM) Biomedical and Health Informatics Training Program at the University of Washington (Grant Nr. T15LM007442). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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Hall, A.K., Marston, H.R. (2014). Gaming and Older Adults in the Digital Age of Healthcare. In: van Hoof, J., Demiris, G., Wouters, E. (eds) Handbook of Smart Homes, Health Care and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01904-8_55-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01904-8_55-1
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Games for Health in the Home: Gaming and Older Adults in the Digital Age of Healthcare- Published:
- 23 April 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01904-8_55-2
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Gaming and Older Adults in the Digital Age of Healthcare- Published:
- 27 August 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01904-8_55-1