A general state of physical health and well-being, generally achieved through correct nutrition and exercise. The elderly have specific requirements with respect to physical fitness, relevant to both evaluation and training. As a person progresses into old age physical fitness is increasingly associated with quality of living standards and the ability to perform daily tasks, rather than absolute physical performance measures. Consequently, fitness parameters such as mobility, dexterity, body balance, motor coordination, reaction time and flexibility generally gain more significance over parameters such as muscular strength, endurance and speed.
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.