A state of psychosocial well-being, the capacity of a person to meet the various cognitive demands of life. From the point of view of self-determination, it means having a positive sense of how they feel, think and act, which improves their ability to enjoy life. Mental fitness is evident in a person’s ability to assimilate information, comprehend relationships, be creative, self-aware of their strengths and limitations. A mentally fit person is additionally capable of judging when to seek help, aware of their interests and goals, capable of drawing reasonable conclusions and developing plans which they can follow through, despite difficulties of opposition. The evaluation criteria of a person’s mental fitness vary with age. Several tests which focus on evaluating mental fitness for the elderly are proposed and cited in scientific literature, most aiming at early detection of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. dementia) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Published in Chapter:
Graceful Ageing: Exergaming as a Means to Delay Mental and Physical Decline among the Elderly
Alexander Astaras (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece & American College of Thessaloniki, Greece)
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8234-4.ch003
Abstract
This chapter provides a review of pilot studies and clinical trials which have been performed to date on serious gaming (exergaming) for the elderly. It is a novel pre-emptive approach to help maintain seniors physically and mentally fit, maximising the time for which they are capable of living independently at their own residence. Several studies are reviewed which show that this is a beneficial arrangement for both the elderly and the national healthcare system. We argue that by using exergaming it may be possible to pre-empt and delay the most common ailments that typically force the elderly to -often reluctantly- leave their residence and seek admission to a nursery home: dementia, arthritis, stroke and cardiovascular disease. Finally, we suggest possible next steps and focal points for pre-emptive exergaming geriatric research and conclude that much larger clinical trials are required to obtain conclusive results about the efficacy of this novel approach.