Impacts of a One-Month Somatosensory Game Intervention on Reaction and Health-Related Quality of Life on Elderly

Abstract

Because of advancement of health technology, life expectance has extended and has made global population aging dramatically. Interventions to improve health-related quality of life and social opportunity of older adults are strongly needed. In this paper, we proposed to a somatosensory video game and sedentary activity group to improve older adults’ reaction and health-related quality in nursing homes. Forty older adults aged more then 65 were recruited from a nursing home and divided into two groups, a somatosensory video game and a sedentary activity group. Participants completed 30-minute somatosensory video game or 30- minute sedentary activity interventions three times a week for 4 weeks. Grasping ruler test and SF-8 were two assessment tools used to measure their progress in reaction time and health-related quality of life and to assess the benefits and outcomes of the interventions. The findings identified that the somatosensory video game intervention successfully created positive impacts on their reaction time performance and the sedentary activity intervention can improve their health-related quality of life significantly through a 30-mintue sessions three times a week for 4 weeks.