Dementia Boardgame

2019

-> Healthcare and rehabilitation
-> Designing stimulations for dementia patients

A playful board game to facilitate conversation and increase cognitive ability.

Collaborated with a social service organisation to create a board game for elderly people living with dementia, visual and mobility impairments. 

Overview 

Dementia is the leading cause of disability and dependency among the elderly, which affect memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion. An elderly centre Caritas Macau felt the need for a board game that is designed in a way that offer greater connection to the elderly’s lives as opposed to common store-bought games such as Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders. The project outcome is a game board that contains cultural and geographical references of Macau, as well as a set of game cards co-developed with therapists and caretakers. 

Research

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Symptoms of Dementia


Someone in the world develops demnetia every 3 seconds. Playing stimulating leisure games are considered as an effective way againt dementia and cognitive decline for the elderly people. Thus, playing board games could be a particulary relevant way of cognitive reserve. Academic studies of the relationship between playing games and dementia confirmed that board game players have a 15% lower risk of developing dementia than non-playiers. The reduction in risk is reported to be a long-term effect. 

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The vision of the boardgame is to provide: 

People who are living with dementia will experiance difficulties with their sight and perception as a result of their condition and the natural ageing process. Difficulties with sight and perception can cause people to misinterpret the world around them, further fuelling the confusion and isolation they are already feeling. The use of different colours, particularly those that contrast, has been proven to make life easier for Alzheimer’s patients.

Implication for design • Highlight important elements • Reduce unwanted visuals • Define with contrast

In collaboration with therapists, 11 areas of stimulation which can help lessen dementia patient’s cognative decline are identified.


In order to create a more relatable and personalised boardgame, the questions often contain cultural references, such as mentions of traditional chinese festivals and chinese food. Most questions describe daily activities that are frequently undetaken by a typical senior citizen from Macau, or problems that requires specific local knowledge and skills that are used on a daily basis to solve. Example of this include basic arithmetic equations and remarks on certain locations in Macau.

Set 1 



The elementary playing card is composed with cards each with a question aiming to offer useful stimulation to middle/ late-stage dementia patients. The questions are targeted towards one of the 11 areas of stimulation.

Set 2




Memory loss and reduced concentration are the most common symptoms of early-staged dementia. The intermediate set of cards is designed to provide targeted stimulation in a higher level.

After having created the first prototype of the board game, it was brought into the elderly center to a group of players for testing. Without interfering with the activity, we observed and recorded their comments, actions, reactions and behaviour during the gameplay.

The players will encounter ‘Mission points’ where they will draw a playing card. Each ‘Mission point’ is represented by a key landmark in Macau. A survey was conducted amongst the caregivers at the elderly centers in order to find out which locations we should include in the map to make the game feel more personal to the player. The caregivers have a close relationship with the elderly and therefore were able to provide valuable information regarding the places that people in the older generation visit frequently. These points are arranged in a way that mirrors the actual geographical position of the landmark on the map of Macau.