Exergames and their benefits in the perception of the Quality of Life and Socialization on institutionalized older adults

Benefits of augmented reality games in physical and cognitive dimensions have been demonstrated before but not many works have addressed the social dimensions which are quite important for the overall quality of life. The objective of this work is to assess the impact of a recently developed platform for senior exercise with augmented reality games (exergames) in the perception of quality of life and socialization of older adults institutionalized in nursing homes. We describe a 3 months study with 18 participants (85.28 ± 6.02 years) divided into three groups of different functional abilities (Group-1 n=6, Group 2 n=5, Group 3 n=7), with a weekly session of exergames of approximately 90 to 120 minutes. Our study shows significant improvements under World Health Quality of Life Scale in domains like Social Relations and also in Friends Satisfaction domain of the Satisfaction with Social Support Scale. Differences between groups were also found regarding Satisfaction with Social Activities. Some positive and significant correlations were found between the number of group sessions attendance and the perceived quality of Social Relations and System Usability. We, thus, conclude that our exergame sessions have several benefits for quality of life perception and social relations.