Effects of web-application games to prevent dementia in elderly

Abstract

The objectives of this quasi-experimental, pre-test – post-test design research were to determine the effects of, and examine the satisfaction with, using application games for the prevention of dementia in elderly people. Sample size calculation using G*Power program to get 34 elders.  The sample was selected using random sampling of people aged above 60 years. Developed web-application games by 3 expertise, content validity Index (CVI) was 0.89, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.93. The participants used the web application for 4 weeks. The research instruments consisted of 1) the Mini-mental state exam Thai 2002 version (MMSE-Thai 2002), which was used to compare pre and post intervention test scores for the prevention of dementia, and 2) a questionnaire to measure the elderly participants’ satisfaction. The data analysis was performed using average, standard deviation and Paired t-tests. The findings revealed that the post-test scores were statistically significantly higher than the pre-test score at p = .003.  Analysis of the scores for the individual aspects measured by the test found that attention, recall, repetition, and writing were statistically significantly higher than the pre-test scores at levels .006, .007, .001, and .002 respectively, and that the average score for the satisfaction of the elderly participants’ was at the highest level (M = 4.59, SD 0.58)