Using Exergames to Train Patients with Dementia to Accomplish Daily Routines

Many people with dementia (PwD) often have serious problems with basic everyday motor-cognitive tasks such as brushing their teeth, grasping objects, putting clothes on, or communicating with others. The challenges of these daily activities increase over time for PwD, but can be opposed with regular exercises. Virtual reality (VR) exergames have enormous potential to provide virtual scenarios, which could potentially reduce the progress of neuronal degeneration by motivating PwD to train their daily routines. In this work-in-progress (w.i.p.) paper, we introduce the concept and development of a VR exergame for PwD. This VR exergame provides personalized motor-cognitive therapy for performing actions of daily routines in a gamified scenario. The focus is to create suitable exercises and further evaluate their completion to provide an optimal training scenario for improving everyday skills of PwD. Finally, we discuss the implications and next steps of this project.