Gamification Application for Promoting and Encouraging Physical Activity in the Elderly
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23918/eajse.v10i2p16Keywords:
Gamification Application, Game Elements, Healthcare, Older People, Physical ActivityAbstract
Physical activity positively promotes calmness and lowers stress levels, overall quality of life, and subjective well-being, particularly among older people. Isolation, shifts in cognition, and a decline in motor abilities are some of the negative consequences of ageing that make many seniors wary of exercise programs. In mobile technology, notably gamification applications, game design features can spark older people's intrinsic motivation, encouraging them to participate in and enjoy physical activity. Despite a growing body of research on this topic, there is still a lack of consensus regarding the nature and extent of older adults' knowledge and healthcare professionals about gamification applications and physical health outcomes among this demographic group. This study seeks to address this gap by examining healthcare professionals' perspectives on using gamification applications to rehabilitate patients' physical activities and overall well-being. Specifically, the study explores the needs, motivations, and obstacles healthcare workers face concerning this approach. qualitative description method was followed to understand the fundamental perspectives of healthcare professionals, capture the experiences of patients and professionals to ensure reliable and trustworthy results and contribute to the credibility and validity of the study. Interviews were reviewed several times, and to analyze, content analysis was used, furthermore, texts were imported into MAXQDA software version 10, which supported the content analysis. The results showed that gamification applications can give patients a sense of support and community while also assisting patients in improving the management of their chronic diseases. Gamification applications can improve the efficiency and convenience of physical exercise programs. However, when an application crashes or is infected with a virus, it can provide patients with false information, exposing users to attacks from hackers when they are using it. Incorrect diagnosis poses a risk to a patient's life as risks and ethical considerations due to using gamification applications in physical activity.
References
[1] Mazeas A, Duclos M, Pereira B, Chalabaev A. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Gamification on Physical Activity: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. J Med Internet Res. 2022;24(1). https://doi.org/10.2196/26779.
[2] Devar T, Hattingh M. Gamification in healthcare: Motivating South Africans to exercise. In Responsible Design, Implementation and Use of Information and Communication Technology: 19th IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society, I3E 2020, Skukuza, South Africa, April 6–8, 2020, Proceedings, Part II 19 2020 (pp. 108-119). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45002-1_10.
[3] Intawong K, Puritat K. A Framework of Developing Mobile Gamification to Improve User Engagement of Physical Activity: A Case Study of Location-Based Augmented Reality Mobile Game for Promoting Physical Health. Int J online Biomed Eng. 2021;17(7):100–22. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v17i07.22349.
[4] Bohr A, Memarzadeh K. The rise of artificial intelligence in healthcare applications [Internet].
[5] Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. INC; 2020. 25–60 p. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/ 10. 10 16/B978-0-12-818438-7.00002-2.
[6] Al-Rayes S, Al Yaqoub FA, Alfayez A, Alsalman D, Alanezi F, Alyousef S, et al. Gaming elements, applications, and challenges of gamification in healthcare. Informatics Med Unlocked [Internet]. 2022;31(January):100974. Available from: https://doi .org/ 10.1016/ j.imu. 2022.100974.
[7] Phillips EG, Nabhan C, Feinberg BA. The gamification of healthcare: Emergence of the digital practitioner? Am J Manag Care. 2019;25(1):13–5. https://www.ajmc.com/.
[8] Agente. Gamification in Healthcare in 2023: Benefits, Trends & Examples. https://agentestudio .com/blog/healthcare-app-gamification2023.https://agentestudio.com/blog/healthcare-app gamification [Preprint].
[9] Muangsrinoon S, Boonbrahm P. Game elements from literature review of gamification in healthcare context. J Technol Sci Educ. 2019;9(1):20–31. https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.556.
[10] Méndez JI, Ponce P, Meier A, Peffer T, Mata O, Molina A. Framework for promoting social interaction and physical activity in elderly people using gamification and fuzzy logic strategy. In 2019 IEEE Global Conference on signal and information processing (GlobalSIP) 2019 Nov 11 (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/GlobalSIP45357.2019.8969110.
[11] Drissi N, Ouhbi S, Janati Idrissi MA, Ghogho M. An analysis on self-management and treatment-related functionality and characteristics of highly rated anxiety apps. Int J Med Inform [Internet]. 2020;141(July):104243. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104243.
[12] Spil T, Sunyaev A, Thiebes S, van Baalen R. The adoption of wearables for a healthy lifestyle: Can gamification help? Proc Annu Hawaii Int Conf Syst Sci. 2017;2017-Janua:3617–26. https://doi.org/10.24251/hicss.2017.437.
[13] Tabak M, Dekker-Van Weering M, Van Dijk H, Vollenbroek-Hutten M. Promoting Daily Physical Activity by Means of Mobile Gaming: A Review of the State of the Art. Games Health J. 2015;4(6):460–9. https://doi.org/ 10.1089/g4h.2015.0010.
[14] Schmidt-Kraepelin M, Thiebes S, Baumsteiger D, Sunyaev A. Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) State of Play: A Citation Network Analysis of Healthcare Gamification Studies Recommended Citation.2018; Available from: https://aisel. aisnet.org/ ecis 2018_rp.
[15] Kuo CM, Chen HJ. The Gamer Types of Seniors and Gamification Strategies Toward Physical Activity [Internet]. Vol. 11593 LNCS, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). Springer International Publishing; 2019. 177–188 p. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22015-0_14.
[16] Kappen DL, Nacke LE, Gerling KM, Tsotsos LE. Design strategies for gamified physical activity applications for older adults. Proc Annu Hawaii Int Conf Syst Sci. 2016;2016-March:1309–18. https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2016.166.
[17] Zlotnik S, Weiss PL, Raban DR, Houldin-Sade A. Use of Gamification for Adult Physical Rehabilitation in Occupational Therapy; A Novel Concept? Hong Kong J Occup Ther. 2023; https://doi.org/10.1177/15691861231179037.
[18] Wilding R. Digital health: critical and cross-disciplinary perspectives. https://doi. org/10.1080 / 14461242.2018.1465833. https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2018.1465833.
[19] Gariboldi MI, Chen M, Wei Y, Xu S, Galea G, Lee S. Towards digital healthy ageing: the case of Agatha and priorities moving forward. Lancet Reg Heal - West Pacific [Internet]. 2023;35:100649. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100649
[20] Lytras MD, Housawi AA, Alsaywid BS. Preface. Digit Transform Healthc Post-Covid-19 Times. 2023;xiii–xxi. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-98353-2.09996-2.
[21] [20] Xie H. A scoping review of gamification for mental health in children: Uncovering its key features and impact. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing. 2022 Dec 1;41:132-43. https://doi.org/ 10.1 016/j.apnu.2022.07.003.
[22] Koivisto J, Hamari J. Gamification of physical activity: A systematic literature review of comparison studies. In3rd International GamiFIN Conference, GamiFIN 2019 2019. CEUR-WS. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2359/preface.pdf.
[23] Koivisto J, Hamai J. The rise of motivational information systems: A review of gamification research. International journal of information management.2019 Apr 1;45:191-210.https://doi .org /10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.10.013.
[24] Rubin DS, Severin R, Arena R, Bond S. Leveraging technology to move more and sit less. Progress in cardiovascular diseases. 2021 Jan 1;64:55-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcad. 2020. 10.007.
[25] Ferrara G, Kim J, Lin S, Hua J, Seto E. A focused review of smartphone diet-tracking apps: usability, functionality, coherence with behavior change theory, and comparative validity of nutrient intake and energy estimates. JMIR mHealth and uHealth. 2019 May 17;7(5):e9232. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9232.
[26] Shaheen, M., Pradhan, S., & Ranajee. (2019). Sampling in Qualitative Research. January, 2019 25–51. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-5366-3.ch002
[27] Sivakumar B, Lemonde M, Stein M, Goldstein S, Mak S, Arcand J. Evaluating health care provider perspectives on the use of mobile apps to support patients with heart failure management: qualitative descriptive study. JMIR cardio. 2022 Oct 26;6(2):e40546. https://doi.org/10.2196/40546.
[28] Sardi L, Idri A, Fernández-Alemán JL. A systematic review of gamification in e-Health. Journal of biomedical informatics. 2017 Jul 1;71:31-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2017.05.011.
[29] Johnson D, Deterding S, Kuhn KA, Staneva A, Stoyanov S, Hides L. Gamification for health and wellbeing: A systematic review of the literature. Internet interventions. 2016 Nov 1;6:89-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2016.10.002.
[30] Fleming TM, Bavin L, Stasiak K, Hermansson-Webb E, Merry SN, Cheek C, Lucassen M, Lau HM, Pollmuller B, Hetrick S. Serious games and gamification for mental health: current status and promising directions. Frontiers in psychiatry. 2017 Jan 10;7:232141. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00215.
[31] Hamari J, Koivisto J, Sarsa H. Does gamification work?--a literature review of empirical studies on gamification. In2014 47th Hawaii international conference on system sciences 2014 Jan 6 (pp. 3025-3034). Ieee. https://creativegames.org.uk/modules/Gamification/Hamari_ etal_Does _ gamification_work-2014.pdf . https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2014.377.
[32] Sañudo-Corrales B, Sánchez-Oliver AJ, del Río-Rama MD. Gamification and new technologies to promote healthy lifestyles and its role in creative industries. Cultural and Creative Industries: A Path to Entrepreneurship and Innovation. 2019:137-53. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99590-8_8.
[33] Direito A, Pfaeffli Dale L, Shields E, Dobson R, Whittaker R, Maddison R. Do physical activity and dietary smartphone applications incorporate evidence-based behaviour change techniques? BMC Public Health. 2016;14(1):1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-646.
[34] Kappen DL, Mirza-Babaei P, Nacke LE. Older Adults’ Physical Activity and Exergames: A Systematic Review. Int J Hum Comput Interact [Internet]. 2019;35(2):140–67. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2018.1441253.
[35] Sarsa H. Does Gamification Work? A Literature Review. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, (2014) January (6–9), pp. 3025–3034. https://urn.fi/ URN: NBN:fi: aalto-201308147547.
[36] Althoff T, White RW, Horvitz E. Influence of Pokémon Go on physical activity: study and implications. Journal of medical Internet research. 2016 Dec 6;18(12):e315. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6759.
[37] Arora C, Razavian M. Ethics of gamification in health and fitness-tracking. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021 Oct 21;18(21):11052. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph182111052.
[38] Marczewski A. The ethics of gamification. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students. 2017 Sep 14;24(1):56-9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3123756.
Downloads
Published
Data Availability Statement
The authors did not make their research data available.
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Narmin Mohammed Noori, Awaz Naaman Saleem, Muhammed Anwar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Eurasian J. Sci. Eng is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY-4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
