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Meta-Analysis
. 2018 Jun 28;20(6):e10486.
doi: 10.2196/10486.

The Social Effects of Exergames on Older Adults: Systematic Review and Metric Analysis

Jinhui Li  1 , Mojisola Erdt  1 , Luxi Chen  2 , Yuanyuan Cao  1 , Shan-Qi Lee  1 , Yin-Leng Theng  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The Social Effects of Exergames on Older Adults: Systematic Review and Metric Analysis

Jinhui Li et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Recently, many studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of exergames on the social well-being of older adults.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to synthesize existing studies and provide an overall picture on the social effects of exergames on older adults.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search with inclusive criteria was conducted in major social science bibliographic databases. The characteristics of exergames, participants, methodology, as well as outcome measurements were extracted from the relevant studies included in the review. The bibliometric and altmetric outreach of the included studies were also investigated.

Results: A total of 10 studies were included in the review, with 8 studies having used the Nintendo Wii platform. Most of the studies recruited healthy older adults from local communities or senior activity centers. Three groups of social-related outcomes have been identified, including emotion-related, behavior-related, and attitude-related outcomes. A metric analysis has shown that the emotion-related and behavior-related outcomes received high attention from both the academic community and social media platforms.

Conclusions: Overall, the majority of exergame studies demonstrated promising results for enhanced social well-being, such as reduction of loneliness, increased social connection, and positive attitudes towards others. The paper also provided implications for health care researchers and exergame designers.

Keywords: active video games; ageing; citation analysis; literature review; psychosocial well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the systematic review process for the included studies.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overview of the bibliometric outreach of included studies.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Overview of the altmetric outreach of included studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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