Food stamps: A reminiscence therapy tablet game for Chinese seniors

During their aging process, many seniors are likely to develop mild cognitive impairment which could easily lead to Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Besides medication treatment, various reminiscence therapy methods have been proven to be effective in terms of enhancing the cognitive capacities of seniors, as well as improving their capabilities to participate in daily activities. This paper describes our design and implementation a reminiscence therapy game on Android tablet for Chinese seniors to help them maintain their memory capacities as well as their calculating abilities. To be more effective as a method of reminiscence therapy, we choose government food stamps that were mandated in China from 1960s to 1980s, as the backdrop of our game. With our experiment and further studies in the future, we aim to prove that this type of reminiscence therapy games can help seniors to maintain their memory capacity and postpone the development of potential Alzheimer's disease, and eventually dementia.