Taiwan officially became an aged society in 2018. The social impact resulting from an aging population is extensive. Reversing the effects of aging and preventing disability and dementia has become a worldwide endeavor, and the idea of healthy aging has garnered growing attention. Nowadays, people focus on healthy longevity rather than the prolongment of expected lifespan as before.
With the help of Acer’s founder Stan Shih, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) has begun working with International Games System (IGS) and Bonus Winner Online Entertainment since 2019 to jointly launch a multiyear innovative research project entitled “The Efficacy of Digital Gaming Intervention on the Cognitive, Physical and Mental Functions of The Elderly,” whose aim is to better motivate elder people to exercise their brains, bodies and minds to reverse the effect of aging and prevent dementia.
Professor Liang-Kung Chen is the project’s lead researcher and a scientist of international geriatric medicine who serves as the NYCU Center for Healthy Longevity and Aging Sciences Director and Taipei Municipal Gan-Dau Hospital Superintendent. The research team members include Professor Ching-Po Lin (a brain imaging expert at NYCU Institute of Neuroscience), Professor Heng-Hsin Shannon Tung (a geriatric care expert at NYCU Department of Nursing), and Directors Li-Ning Peng and Wei-Ju Lee (geriatric medicine experts at Veterans Hospital).
Since NYCU has been working in the field of gerontology for years, it initiated a cutting-edge study that integrates digital gaming and artificial intelligence to provide innovative solutions for an aging society. Digital somatosensory dance and digital Mahjong are two digital games explored in this project.
Games to Reinvigorate Bodies and Brains
The unique full-body design of the digital somatosensory dance game not only improves the limb flexibility of elderly people but also has a positive effect on the brain. It improves the cognitive skills of elderly people. Other notable improvements have also been found in both the insular region and cerebellum region, where the former is responsible for processing the senses, emotions, and attention, while the latter is responsible for motor control, attention, and cognition-related activities.
According to the research results, digital Mahjong helps to improve the judgment and responsiveness of elderly people. Moreover, the mental toughness and daily health scores of the participating elderly people have also improved significantly. Substantial improvement has also been found in the function of the temporal fusiform cortex, which is responsible for the brain’s advanced visual processing, particularly color recognition, character recognition, and facial recognition.
Additionally, some international studies have suggested that exciting and entertaining activities can enhance the retention and persistence of elderly people. Dance moves paired with brisk, powerful music can help with hand-eye coordination training, and Mahjong games that require considerable strategic thinking can effectively prevent dementia. Therefore, anti-aging games are worthy of attention and further exploration.
A Better Old Age
Could you imagine what your later years would look like? They do not necessarily have to be long and disease-ridden. The late Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom remained healthy and almost mobile to the last day of her life. Though most people would wish for their later years to be healthy, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics, the number of years in poor health of Taiwanese people was longer than 8 years in 2020. What’s worse, many Taiwanese people could not even bid a proper farewell to their families before they passed away.
Dr. Chen says that more people are aware of the importance of healthy aging. To have a quality old age, individuals must continue to exercise their bodies and minds on a daily basis. As much of a cliché as it sounds, active engagement in healthy aging behavior is necessary, and individuals must conduct physical and mental exercise simultaneously. However, developing exercise habits is difficult for elderly people, which might be due to a lack of motivation, incentives, and interests.
Chen also said that most retired people lead a casual lifestyle with no specific schedules. Activities such as video gaming, which is not restricted by time and place, can entertain and challenge elderly people and subsequently provide a sense of accomplishment. The nervous system function, concentration, and movement coordination of elderly people can be enhanced through playing video games. The existing research findings can be applied to new business activities that provide continual physical training through various interactive media.
Promising Research Findings
IGS has worked jointly with NYCU to develop innovative technology for anti-aging video games. Clinical experiments have been conducted to explore the effect of somatosensory games on delaying aging. Moreover, experiments have assessed whether elderly people—by dancing intuitively with the somatosensory dance machines—could enhance their spatial awareness, hand-foot coordination and flexibility, eye function, and sensory function between the brain and limbs. After 3 years of research, antiaging games have generated excellent outcomes, which can thus encourage more enterprises to invest.
Bonus Winner Online Entertainment has been developing “Bonus Winner Mahjong” for years as part of a research project on developing innovative technology for anti-aging video games. After 3 years of rigorous medical examinations, gradual improvement has been observed in elderly people who played Mahjong video games in the areas of brain cognition, emotional processing, judgment, and responsiveness. The research concludes that the Mahjong game can significantly benefit elderly people in clinical settings.