Toward Ludic Gerontechnology: A Review of Games for Dementia Care

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
The field of games for dementia care is still largely at a prototype or early-validation stage, with promising but preliminary results.
02
Cognitive rehabilitation games dominate current work, yet their efficacy evidence is limited, and brain-training effects have proven highly task-specific, so larger clinical trials are still needed.
03
People living with dementia can often play these games independently, though findings diverge by level of impairment and other variables that require further study.
04
The review argues the field should prioritize affective, socio-emotional, and playful design over an overwhelming focus on cognitive rehabilitation.
05
Alternative design approaches include everyday-life simulations, historical-setting games, and reminiscence games (board-based and digital) that use personal memories, multisensory stimuli, and conversational prompts to support engagement and wellbeing.
06
Design guidance favors simple interfaces, immediate feedback, and "can-do" experiences that avoid exposing deficits through failure, while commercial brain games are often judged too demanding for cognitively impaired players.
07
The review proposes adding entertainment and leisure categories to current game taxonomies, and calls for standardized evaluation accounting for dementia type, stage, and player background, with game analytics and adaptive difficulty as key future features.

Summary

Games designed for dementia care have become a growing area of gerontechnology, and this review takes stock of the field's current state, its design approaches, and its evidence base. Its central argument is that games for people living with dementia remain largely at a prototype or early-validation stage, with promising but preliminary results, and that the field needs greater attention to affective, socio-emotional, and playful design rather than an overwhelming focus on cognitive rehabilitation. The review finds that people living with dementia can often play such games independently, though findings diverge with respect to level of impairment and other variables that call for further study.

The review surveys the dominant design approaches. Cognitive rehabilitation games, often grounded in daily activities such as cooking or household tasks, make up much of the current work, yet evidence for their efficacy is limited. Brain-training effects have been shown to be highly task-specific, and larger clinical trials are still needed. Alternative approaches include simulations of everyday life, historical-setting games, and reminiscence games, both board-based and digital, which draw on personal memories, multisensory stimuli, and conversational prompts to support engagement and socio-emotional wellbeing. Commercial brain games are frequently judged too demanding for cognitively impaired players.

Design guidance emphasizes simple, accessible interfaces, immediate feedback, and "can-do" experiences that avoid exposing deficits through failure. The review also proposes a taxonomy that adds entertainment and leisure categories, which current classifications omit. It calls for standardized evaluation methods that account for dementia type, stage, and player background, along with the use of game analytics and adaptive difficulty as key features of future work.