Keep it simple! Assisting older people with mental and physical training

Abstract

The demographic change is having a strong impact upon Europe's societies and upon our financial and social security systems. To avoid cost intensive retirement homes, one main goal for European governments is to build up and maintain a socio-technological infrastructure that allows elderly people to stay in their familiar surroundings and cultivate their social networks as long as possible, with support of assistive technologies. However, when deployed in real-life settings, i.e. "in the wild", it has been shown that these will only be accepted and therefore effective, when integrated into an environment that aims at enhancing people's health and well-being in general. Although it is well known that moderate physical training as well as mental exercising are crucial for maintaining health and well-being, lack of motivation frequently prevents individuals from exercising regularly. We introduce a simple way to motivate elderly people for mental jogging and physical training with assistive indoor and outdoor technology. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.