Innovative Serious Games for People with Dementia developed through intergenerational interventions: The "Bridge" project: A European Innovative Approach

People with dementia (PwD) are often excluded from intergenerational social activities due to stigmatization, forming a generation gap. This gap is constantly widening, while young people are losing interest to participate in volunteering actions concerning elderly people. The Erasmus+ funded "Bridge"program was a three-year pan-European initiative that aimed to develop a set of prototypes of Serious Games (SGs) acting on cognitive and behavioral symptoms of dementia, involving also younger and older people. The project's consortium gathered related research and conducted focus groups with experts in the field of dementia and game design and a Methodological Guide was developed, which is related to Bridge's workshops methodology, key points for prototype SGs and e-platform. Afterwards, three Co-Creation Workshops were implemented in three countries. In Greece, Italy and Romania, 24 PwD played several games and then co-designed ideas of SGs in collaboration with 6 game-designers, 16 healthcare professionals, 7 caregivers and 21 young volunteers. After the implementation of the workshops, 11 ideas for the games have been developed. All ideas were digitalized and partners selected 8 of them to be further developed to SGs: "Next destination", "Flea market", "Find the word", "Bird-watching", "Emotions", "The directors", "Blooming flowers"and "Specialite"(https://projectbridge.eu/the-serious-game/) and have been tested during a series of workshops in October 2020, organized in the different countries. The testing phase involved 47 people: 23 PwD, 17 health professionals, 4 caregivers and 3 young volunteers. The Bridge web-platform (http://bridgecourses.uowm.gr/), containing MOOCs on the methodology of the Game-Creation Workshops and the final 8 selected SGs is the final result.