Facilitating Collaboration and Social Experiences with Videogames in Dementia

Need for care and accordingly the prevalence of dementia is increasing rapidly. Information and communication technologies (ICT) may have the potential to support collaboration and cooperation between people with dementia and their caregivers and thus promote independency, wellbeing and quality of life of involved parties. In this context, the authors investigated the potential of an ICT-based videogame system to generate and facilitate social experiences of people with dementia and their caregivers. 26 people with dementia and their caregivers participated in a 16 month participatory design study. Results suggest that collaboration and cooperation among involved parties increased by using the system. Further, the study revealed positive and negative social experiences triggered by the videogame based system. This article will report on these results and provide implications that may support researchers to design similar systems with the potential to increase collaboration and cooperation among people with dementia and their caregivers.