The project aims to create serious games treating cognitive and behavioral symptoms of dementia through various workshops engaging younger and older people.
Through various steps, the project will design, produce and test various serious games (physical, digital or phygital) targeting to people with dementia.
By adopting a transnational approach in the project through the cooperation of organizations and institutes at european level, the consortium will:
- Exchange knowledge and experiences from a variety of disciplines and institutions across Europe.
- Build upon the efforts of local institutions to increase awareness about dementia in members of general public.
- Create and promote games to improve cognitive and behavioral symptoms of pwD.
- Create tailored content in games as a result of the collaborative work between healthcare professionals, members of general public, university students, and game-designers.
- Contribute to multiplier effect at European level.
Background
Over the past decades, life expectancy is increasing in years, resulting not only in an increased number of adults over 65 and 80 years old, but also in an increased number of older adults with age-related impairments on physical or cognitive levels. In 2015, 46.8 million people worldwide had dementia (Alzheimer’s Disease lnternational; ADI 2015). These numbers are expected to increase 281% by 2050 and people living with dementia (pwD) will reach 131.5 millions (ADI,2015). People with dementia are often excluded from intergenerational social activities due to stigmatization. Young people could play a significant role to fight against the stigma and the consequent loneliness and social exclusion of pwD, especially if they are engaged as volunteers in projects which challenge them too.
- Serious games are a well known non pharmaceutical practice for treating cognitive symptoms of dementia with Mild and Moderate Symptoms through stimulating cognitive abilities of patients with dementia . These are also called “training games” since they’re designed for a specific purpose. Relevant literature review has identified a lack of similar approaches in behavioral symptoms of dementia.
- Recognising all these trends and facts, the Alzheimer Societies and local services of European countries run campaigns to improve the awareness for members of general public. Thus several European projects have been conducted to develop game based interventions to support larger numbers of pwD and caregivers varying from web based games as well as physical games and or objects.