Developing a Tangible Interactive Game to Improve Reminiscence among People with Alzheimer’s Disease

Millions of people around the world are currently suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disease that causes cognitive impairment. As a result, numerous symptoms arise such as memory and thinking issues. Both pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments exist to tackle the cognitive issues people with Alzheimer’s face. Games are one of the approaches currently used to treat cognitive impairment among people with Alzheimer’s. However, a need for games specifically aimed to tackle cognitive issues among people with Alzheimer’s has been identified. A game that stimulates and aims to improve reminiscence seemed promising as reminiscence improves cognitive functioning. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to develop a tangible interactive game that aims to improve reminiscence among people with Alzheimer’s disease. By improving their reminiscence while providing an enjoyable experience, it is hoped to benefit their overall quality of life. The tangible interactive game was evaluated with five proxy users. The main result was that the proxy users enjoyed playing the game and reminiscence was successfully stimulated among all the users. However, future research is necessary to discover whether the game improves reminiscence among people with Alzheimer’s disease.