Cybercycling seniors could find a path to a healthier life.
Union College has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how interactive digital gaming can improve the health behaviors and outcomes for people age 50 and older.
The College joins 11 other research teams who will receive up to $200,000 each from the foundation’s Health Games Research program to measure the effects that playing video games has on the young and the old.
Projects range from how motion-based games may help stroke patients progress faster in physical therapy to how people in substance abuse treatment can practice skills and behaviors in the virtual world of a game to prevent real-world relapses.
At Union, researchers will spend two years examining the physiological and neuropsychological impact of cybercycling on area seniors. Players on a stationary bike will be monitored for heart rate, body composition, cognitive function, social relationships and other measures while racing against a virtual cycling partner.
The idea is to make exercise for a group not prone to participate more competitive and fun by capitalizing on the popularity of video games. Players can compete against themselves or others.
“The benefits of aerobic exercise on brain health are well documented,” said Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology and the project’s lead researcher. She is collaborating with Paul Arciero, an associate professor of exercise science at Skidmore College.
“Yet studies have shown that across the lifespan, exercise participation decreases dramatically, with fewer than 10 percent of seniors exercising at the recommended levels. We hope to clarify which factors about cybercycling may help increase exercise behaviors.”
She anticipates that for some seniors, the option to compete against one’s self or others in 3-D will enhance motivation, while for others collaborating with a virtual league will increase participation.
Players will exercise at their resident or senior center, and be evaluated at the Healthy Aging & Neuropsychology Lab run by Anderson-Hanley or the Exercise Science Lab at Skidmore. Researchers hope to recruit players and also set up work stations at area senior centers.
“This grant allows two small liberal arts colleges to combine efforts and push the envelope of our research in some new and exciting ways,” said Anderson-Hanley. “Ideally, it would be wonderful to see that some isolated, sedentary seniors might start looking forward to climbing on their cybercycle to ‘spin’ with an old friend who may live across the country, but with whom they can work toward a common goal of improving their physical and cognitive health, all while having fun.”
Other institutions to receive grants include Cornell University, University of Florida and the University of North Carolina.
Health Games Research, a national program that supports research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health, is headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“This groundbreaking study led by Union will identify new interactive behavioral health strategies to use in the design of future health games and technologies,” said the program’s director, Debra Lieberman, a communication researcher in the university’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research and a leading expert in the research and design of interactive media for learning and health behavior change.
“Together, the 12 studies will help us better understand how people respond to various types of health games, and this will potentially lead to new game-based applications that can more effectively engage and motivate players to improve their health.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on health and health care issues. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.
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