Publications / 2024 Proceedings of the 41st ISARC, Lille, France

Fit Islands: Designing a Multifunctional Exergame to Promote Healthy Aging for Chinese Older Adults

Zixin Shen, Rongbo Hu, Dong Wan, Ami Ogawa, Thomas Bock
Pages 529-536 (2024 Proceedings of the 41st ISARC, Lille, France, ISBN 978-0-6458322-1-1, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

Emerging economies are ill-prepared to deal with population aging. Uncontrollable events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and regional conflicts have exacerbated the plight of older adults. The consequent development of smart aging offers endless possibilities for improving the quality of life and health of older adults. In this paper, the authors propose a universal approach to designing a health-promoting Exergame system in the format of a virtual village for emerging economies to cope with aging populations. To verify the feasibility, the authors designed an expandable Exergame called "Fit Islands", using China as a case study. Based on the initial demonstration the authors conducted functional tests. The result is that Fit Islands can meet the development objective of motivating Chinese older people to increase their physical activity, providing initial evidence of the feasibility of an Exergame system to promote healthy aging in emerging economies. The application of Fit Islands demonstrates the feasibility of the universal Exergame development method, which can, in principle, provide comprehensive and practical guidance for other countries.

Keywords: Aging in China, COVID-19 Pandemic, Digital Technology, Exergame, Health, Population Aging, Serious Game, Silver Economy, Smart Aging