Abstract
Background: Physical exercise benefits functioning, health, and well-being. However, people living with dementia in particular hardly engage in exercise. Exergaming (exercise and gaming) is an innovative, fun, and relatively safe way of exercising in a virtual reality or gaming environment. It may help people living with dementia overcome barriers they can experience regarding regular exercise activities. Objective: This systematic literature review aims to provide an overview of the cost-effectiveness of exergaming and its effects on physical, cognitive, emotional, and social functioning, as well as the quality of life in people living with dementia. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cinahl, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Library, and the Web of Science Core Collection were searched. Selection of studies was carried out by at least two independent researchers. Results: Three studies were found to be eligible and were included in this review. Two of these showed some statistically significant effects of exergaming on physical, cognitive, and emotional functioning in people living with dementia, although based on a very small sample. No articles were found about the cost-effectiveness of exergaming. Conclusions: Only a few controlled studies have been conducted into the effectiveness of exergaming, and these show very little significant benefits. More well-designed studies are necessary to examine the effects of exergaming.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 741-760 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Alzheimer's Disease |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 24 Apr 2018 |
Funding
The research presented in this review was carried out as part of the Marie Curie Innovative Train- ing Network (ITN) action, H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015, under grant agreement number 676265, and co-funded by ZonMw/Alzheimer Nederland, project number 70-73305-98-629, and Stichting Dioraphte, project number 16 02 04 03. This paper has benefited from data from the LLM study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02267499). The Long Lasting Memories (LLM) project was initially funded by the European Commission (Project No.238904; www.longlastingmemories.eu) but is currently continued as the business exploitation of LLM, namely, LLM Care. LLM Care (http://www.ll mcare.gr) is a self-funded initiative at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a live active and healthy aging ecosystem with an associated Living Lab (ThessAHALL, http://www.aha-livinglabs. com). We would like to thank Dr. Martijn Heymans (Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) for his contributions to the statistical analysis as well as Lisa Truffino (Research Assistant, Department of Psychiatry, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) for providing practical support throughout the review process.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 676265 |
| European Commission | 238904 |
| Stichting Dioraphte | 16 02 04 03 |
Keywords
- Cognition
- dementia
- exercise
- neuropsychiatry
- play
- quality of life
- review
