This study is being conducted in Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa to investigate whether digital games can provide cognitive and socio-emotional benefits to older adults; it also is addressing implementation and ergonomic issues for this target audience.
Aging Well: Can Digital Games help? (2012-2016)
Principal Investigator: David Kaufman
Funding Agency: SSHRC
Additional Team Members: Dr. Andrew Sixsmith, Director, Gerontology Research Centre, SFU; Dr. Louise Sauve, Teleuniversite; Dr. Lise Renaud, UQAM; Dr. Emmanuel Duplaa, University of Ottawa; Dr. Ben Mortenson, UBC
How This Project is Carried Out
A survey of over 1000 seniors was conducted about their digital and non-digital gameplay. This is being followed up with a series of interventions in seniors' facilities, community centres and private homes to investigate the potential of using various digital games to provide cognitive and social-emotional benefits to older adults.
Why This Project Matters
There is much evidence that shows the benefits of mental fitness and social connectedness in reducing seniors’ cognitive decline. As digital games have been shown to have many positive cognitive and social benefits for younger learners, it is a natural extension to investigate whether the same benefits can be gained by older adults. However, much research remains to be done to understand how to realize their potential.
Where to Learn More
Kaufman,D, Sauve,L., Renaud,L., Duplaa,E. (2014).Cognitive Benefits of Digital Games for Older Adults. In Proceedings of EdMedia conference, Tampere, Finland.
Kaufman,D.(2014). Benefits and Barriers of Older Adults’ Digital Gameplay. In Proceedings of CSEDU conference, Barcelona, Spain.