On Exploring Design Elements in Assistive Serious Games for Parkinson’s Disease Patients: The i-PROGNOSIS Exergames Paradigm

Serious Games (SGs) design couples learning design with game logic. Moreover, it can result in SGs with beneficial effects in sustaining and/or improving the (physical, cognitive) functionality in older adults. In this vein, the design elements in assistive SGs for Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients are explored here. The Game-Based Learning (GBL) design framework is adopted and its main game-design parameters are combined in a test case of Exergames design, drawn from the i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite (http://www.i-prognosis.eu). Data from a GBL-related Web-survey, completed by 104 participants, were subjected to linear regression analysis, so to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the Exergames beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of the proposed analysis can assist game designers to focus on the use of significant parameters during the designing process of Exergames for PD patients and maximize the positive effect of the SGs in their quality of daily life.