An approach of indoor exercise: Kinect-based video game for elderly people

Abstract

Exercising is essential for elderly people to maintain their health in a good condition. However, elderly people usually have a tendency to stay at home due to their physical limitations or limited weather conditions in which they are willing to go outside for exercise. In addition, elderly people are easily injured with heavy exercise equipment, which also makes them reluctant to exercise. In this study, we followed the process of "user-centered design" in developing an indoor exercising video game using the Kinect system to overcome aforementioned problems. We first investigated user requirements based on interviews with real users and then developed a Kinect-based game for elderly people. We lastly evaluated the usability of the game; the results show that the Kinect-based indoor exercising game can be effectively used for better exercise, entertainment, and communication. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.