Raising awareness of Alzheimer’s with a video game

A student’s project to create a video game that allows players a first-person look at what it’s like to live with Alzheimer’s was unveiled last week.

A candidate for a degree in Game Design & Production Management at Abertay University in the UK, Alexander Tarvet wanted to give the public a sense of the debilitating disease, in which patients suffer from memory loss and cognitive decline.

“Computer games are one of the greatest ways to let people safely explore a situation they’ve never experienced, as you’re creating a whole new world to explore,” he says. “Many games deal with fantasy and fiction, but I wanted to look at something much more serious.”

In the game, the safety and comfort of one’s home evaporates, leaving the player in a hostile, unsettling situation, says Tarvet.

To navigate, the player must explore and piece together the objects to gain an understanding of the simplest things in his life.

This includes reading letters, identifying the faces in the photos and poking through drawers and shelves in search of clues.

Putting yourself into the shoes of the person with the disease gives a very immediate, visceral sense of how disorientating and terrifying it must be to live with long-term memory loss,” says Tarvet.

In the UK alone, there will be 850,000 individuals living with Alzheimer’s by the end of 2015, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.

In the US, one in nine people age 65 and older is currently living with Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. – AFP Relaxnews

Category: Technology & Devices, Top Story