How does it affect the willingness to continue rehabilitation training? A usability evaluation of a multi-sensory rehabilitation interactive game system (MRIGS) for older adults with mild dementia

The prevalence of dementia is increasing every year, with one person developing dementia every 3 s. Therefore, this study proposes a novel multi-sensory rehabilitation interactive game system (MRIGS), which uses grip assistive devices combined with different colors and tactile stimulation to achieve multi-sensory training effects of vision, hearing, and touch. This study involved 17 older adults (72.2 years) with mild dementia (the MMSE between 17 and 23 points). To explore how the MRIGS affects their willingness to continue rehabilitation training, the system usability scale (SUS) with ten items was adopted to compare the differences between traditional multi-sensory rehabilitation (TMR) and MRIGS regarding gender, rehabilitation experience, and age. The novel MRIGS interested older adults and improved their willingness for continuous rehabilitation. According to the overall SUS score, the MRIGS had better overall usability performance (86.18, being “Good+”) than the TMR (66.62, only being “Average-”) (t = −4.44, p = 0.00 < 0.05). In addition, the result shows that the MRIGS was a promising way to improve seven (out of 10) usability items (Willingness, Convenience, Stress, etc.) compared to TMR. For males, the MRIGS had better usability in “Willingness,” “Convenience,” and “Difficulty,” while “Consistency” was better for females. We also found a significant difference in “Willingness” for those with previous rehabilitation experience because they had experienced the difficulties and boring feelings encountered in TMR in medical institutions. On the contrary, the MRIGS could make rehabilitation more exciting and motivating. For those over 70, the MRIGS performed better in “Convenience” and “Consistency,” indicating that improving the overall convenience of training operations had become more important along with their natural decline of physical functions by aging. In addition, among older adults with weak grip strength in their dominant hand, the hand grip strength significantly influences their willingness to use the novel MRIGS. The MRIGS developed in this study could integrate multi-sensory training to help older adults with mild dementia improve their motivation and willingness to continue rehabilitation training.