The interplay of beauty, goodness, and usability in interactive products
Human-Computer Interaction
An interactive tool to promote musical creativity in people with dementia
Computers in Human Behavior
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
MoBoogie: creative expression through whole body musical interaction
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Alzheimer's Disease rehabilitation using smartphones to improve patients' quality of life
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare
A pilot usability study of MINWii, a music therapy game for demented patients
Technology and Health Care
| Hi-index | 0.01 |
MINWii, a new serious video game targeting Alzheimer and demented patients, is a simple Music Therapy tool usable by untrained care givers. Its objective is to improve patients' self-image (renarcissization) to reduce behavioral symptoms, which are an important cause of institutionalization. With MINWii, elderly gamers use Wiimotes to improvise or play predefined songs on a virtual keyboard. We detail our design process, which addresses the specific features of dementia: this iterative refinement scheme, built upon qualitative, small scale experiments in a therapeutic environment, led to a shift of MINWii's original focus from creativity to reminiscence. A large majority of our patients, with mild to moderate dementia, expressed a strong interest in our system, which was confirmed by feedback from the care givers. A fully controlled usability study of MINWii is currently under way, which should lead to future research assessing its actual therapeutic impact.