The Use of Mobile Games to Assess Cognitive Function of Elderly with and without Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND: In the past few years numerous mobile games have been developed to train the brain. There is a lack of information about the relation between the scores obtained in these games and the cognitive abilities of the patients. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine whether or not mobile games can be used to assess cognitive abilities of elderly. METHODS: Twenty healthy young adults, 29 old patients with cognitive impairments (Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) [20- 24]) and 27-aged controls participated in this study. Scores obtained in 7 mobile games were correlated with MMSE and the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Evaluation revised (ACE-R). RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found for all games between patients with cognitive impairments and the aged controls. Correlations between the average scores of the games and the MMSE and ACE-R are significant (R = 0.72 [p < 0.001] and R = 0.81 [p < 0.001], respectively). CONCLUSION: Scores of cognitive mobile games could be used as an alternative to MMSE and ACE-R to evaluate cognitive function of aged people with and without cognitive impairment at least when MMSE is higher than 20/30.

Patients' Acceptance of the Use of Serious Games in Physical Rehabilitation in Morocco.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine whether serious games especially customized for physical rehabilitation could be used in daily clinics with patients who are not familiar with informatics and/or new technologies and whether such a clinical approach would be culturally acceptable within a North African population to plan further clinical distribution if the hypothesis appears to be positive. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-one patients participated in this study. Experiments were performed in the University Hospital Mohammed VI Oujda in Morocco. Patients were asked to perform physical rehabilitation exercises with dedicated serious games after their conventional therapy session. A questionnaire was used to evaluate patients' habits to rehabilitation exercises and satisfaction and expectation about the use of serious games for physical rehabilitation. RESULTS: The same problem of low participation in at-home exercises was found in Morocco compared to Europe and the United States: 60 (30)% of the exercises was performed by the patients in Morocco and 48 (28)% in Europe and the United States. Results of this study show that serious games are well accepted by the patients (100%) and that it can help during rehabilitation (90%). Most of the patients prefer exercises with games than conventional rehabilitation exercises. CONCLUSION: Even in a context of low education (participants in this study attended school until the age of 10 years old), and low access and knowledge about new technology and informatics, rehabilitation exercises within serious games seem to be an interesting option to motivate patients during rehabilitation with a physiotherapist. Such a system could be installed also at home to increase patient's participation.