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- Closing the loop in exergaming - Health benefits of biocybernetic adaptation in senior adultsPublication . Muñoz, John Edison; Cameirão, M.; Bermúdez i Badia, S.; Gouveia, E. RubioExergames help senior players to get physically active by promoting fun and enjoyment while exercising. However, most exergames are not designed to produce recommended levels of exercise that elicit adequate physical responses for optimal training in the aged population. In this project, we developed physiological computing technologies to overcome this issue by making real-time adaptations in a custom exergame based on recommendations for targeted heart rate (HR) levels. This biocybernetic adaptation was evaluated against conventional cardiorespiratory training in a group of active senior adults through a floor-projected exergame and a smartwatch to record HR data. Results showed that the physiologically-augmented exergame leads players to exert around 40% more time in the recommended HR levels, compared to the conventional training, avoiding over exercising and maintaining good enjoyment levels. Finally, we made available our biocybernetic adaptation software tool to enable the creation of physiological adaptive videogames, permitting the replication of our study.
- Effects of prolonged multidimensional fitness training with exergames on the physical exertion levels of older adultsPublication . Gonçalves, Afonso Rodrigues; Muñoz, John Edison; Gouveia, Élvio Rúbio; Cameirão, Mónica da Silva; Bermúdez i Badia, SergiWhile exergames have been used with older adults in an attempt to promote higher physical activity (PA) levels, and its subsequent health benefits, there is a lack of research that objectively quantifies the PA levels that custom-made exergames can produce throughout an extended training program. In this paper, we describe a 3-month intervention study that aimed to measure the participants PA levels during exergames’ sessions and their effectiveness in eliciting the recommended activity levels. Over the course of the study, two groups of older adults participated in either a conventional multidimensional fitness training program of two sessions of exercise per week (n = 16) or in an equivalent combined program (n = 15), of one conventional and one exergame session per week. Both the objective PA levels (through accelerometry) and subjective effort (perceived exertion) were collected in each session. Results revealed that while participants spent more time in moderateto-vigorous PA during exergaming than during conventional sessions, they also spent less energy, thus working out at lower intensities but for a more sustained amount of time. The self-reported exertion was consistently higher for the sessions of the combined exercise program. We showed that a set of custom-made exergames can be successfully used by trainers to set up personalized training sessions and can be used in combination with regular exercise for sustained long-term training, exposing differences between the two training regimes in terms of efficiency, elicited PA, and perceived effort.