Active Mind

Gamified Mental Wellness

What it does

The world's population is rapidly aging, with the proportion of older adults expected to nearly double from 12% in 2015 to 22% by 2050. This will result in a significant increase in the number of people aged 60 and above, rising from 900 million to 2 billion. Older individuals face unique physical and mental health challenges that require acknowledgment and support. Mental and neurological disorders are prevalent among adults aged 60 and over, affecting over 20% of this population and contributing to 6.6% of all disabilities. These disorders also account for 17.4% of Years Lived with Disability. The most common mental and neurological disorders in this age group are dementia and depression. Anxiety disorders, substance use problems and self-harm are concerning issues among a quarter of deaths in people aged 60 or above. I want to build a gamified mental wellness platform designed for older adults to improve their mental health.The platform helps to engage, motivate and support them in maintaining and enhancing their cognitive abilities, emotional and overall well being. The gamified approach engages regular participation making mental health improvement, enjoyable and rewarding for them. Games are most important part of lives at an early age. Our priorities change as we age but the recreational activities should not be forgotten. There are many benefits of playing games, including memory functions. Retaining memory functions reduces the possibilities and progressions of diseases like Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions.

How we built it

I start with a simple game of memory which involves locating pair of pictures among a set of face down cards using recollections. This can be enhanced to support multiple levels where 3 or more cards need to be matched or complex pattern matching requirements can be added. This can be further extended to add more games like crossword puzzles and sudoku, which can bring in positive benefits in mental and cognitive health. The Platform will provide abilities to personalise and choose lists of games to play and track progress. Such a platform is built using simple and lightweight technologies like Love 2D and Lua which can be easily shared and executed on platforms like community computers and other such devices. Accessibility is a key aspect that needs to be considered while designing and implementing such games since elderly adults may experience hearing or visual disabilities or shortcomings.

Challenges we ran into

It was challenging for me to understand the flow of control across the primary Love functions that are managed and executed by the framework. The other challenge was to distribute the images in pairs across the grid in random fashion. I could come up with an algorithm by consulting resources from internet and learning about random functions. Once these two challenges were taken care of, I could fit in the remaining pieces of the code fairly easily. I believe, the same structure of code can now be used to extend this game (e.g. adding more levels) or adding new flavours of games (e.g. cross word puzzle).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creation and management of a grid of cells with appropriate properties to display correct images and following playing rules.

What we learned

I read more than I coded. I read and learnt about various social issues and eventually decided to work on a project for elderly adults. I am very close to my grand mother, who is 80 years old and wanted to use this opportunity to build something that she likes and enjoys. She was one of the early players who used this platform and provided some very helpful comments!

What's next for Active Mind

Shape it into a platform that can be easily shared and personalised. Add more games with the audience in mind.

Built With

• love
• lua