Framework for promoting social interaction and physical activity in elderly people using gamification and fuzzy logic strategy Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © 2019 IEEE.Elderly people commonly face health problems related to their sedentary life. Thus, their physical strength, mental capability, and motor skills are decreasing. Moreover, overweight and physical problems are becoming a serious health problem around the world. On the other hand, they suffer from the social isolation that directly affects their physical and mental health. Gamification for elderly people emerges to motivate them to exercise and socialize with their peers, through social interaction on mobile devices. Nevertheless, the complexity for elderly people, regarding the interface usage and the installation procedures, may cause usability and adoption problem. Hence, they have stopped using the gamification systems, so the gamification strategies do not engage them. Then, this paper proposes a framework to teach, engage, and promote physical and social activity in elderly people; besides, the proposed interface could help to solve usability and functionality problems with connected thermostats. The first step is to create knowledge base by collecting information from elderly people, such as their personality characteristics, and gamification elements; these characteristics are used to design the gamification strategy for elderly people. Then, the second step is based on a fuzzy logic system, which provides the gamification elements suitable for each type of elderly people. Finally, the third step is to develop a tailored Human Machine Interface (HMI), which is deployed into a connected device. As a result, a mock-up of a gamified connected thermostat interface device, for grown people is presented to assess the proposal with elderly people.

publication date

  • November 1, 2019