JMIR Serious Games

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit cognitive, motor, and social difficulties that affect engagement, causing developmental delays, behavioral challenges, and obesity—interrelated concerns in daily functioning and well-being. Although interactive interventions have incorporated physical activity, they often rely on limited physical involvement and lack iterative, expert-informed design, as built on pre-existing game frameworks. Physical activity is often operationalized as constrained input (eg, gestures or in-place actions) rather than exertion-intensive, whole-body exercise, and design guidance for adapting exercise content under ASD-oriented safety and cognitive-sensory constraints remains limited. These limitations highlight the need for exergames that promote sustained, full-body participation aligned with developmental goals, motivating formative, co-design with expertise and initial field testing in this population.

Slowness in voluntary movements is a hallmark of Parkinson disease (PD); yet, objective measurement outside clinical settings is limited. Serious games represent a promising alternative to extract motor performance metrics during interactions. However, evidence on the effectiveness of these games in discriminating motor performance between individuals with and those without PD is still scarce.

Managing blood pressure (BP) in prehypertensive individuals is crucial to prevent the incidence of hypertension. While physical activity has proven effective in BP management, physical inactivity remains prevalent. Gamification has shown promise in addressing physical inactivity; however, its effectiveness is limited due to the suboptimal intervention design.

The metaverse provides an immersive, interactive medium for health education, but most studies evaluate immersion and gamification together. Randomized evidence disentangling their separate effects on immediate learning and short-term retention in breast health education is lacking.

Exergaming, which combines physical activity with interactive gaming, has been shown to improve motor skills and fitness. However, exergaming’s potential in complex, open-skill sports such as tennis, which require real-time coordination, decision-making, and technical precision, remains underexplored. Furthermore, only a few studies have evaluated the impact of exergaming on both technical skill development and psychological outcomes such as motivation and confidence, especially among novice players. This study addresses these gaps by comparing the combination of exergame-based tennis training and on-court tennis training (EBTT+OCTT) with on-court tennis training alone (OCTT×2) in improving technical skills, grip strength, confidence, and motivation.

Educators are exploring new methods to educate beyond the classroom as global concerns about students’ cognitive, emotional, and social well-being grow. Physical education (PE) has been demonstrated to boost cognitive and psychological outcomes in several studies. Most research has neglected the benefits of gamification and artificial intelligence (AI)–based feedback in PE, focusing instead on conventional PE formats. The impacts of technologically enhanced PE settings on students’ cognitive performance through feedback and reward mechanisms remain understudied.

In the context of global aging, cognitive decline among older adults has become a prevalent issue, significantly impacting their daily lives. Serious games have demonstrated potential in enhancing cognitive abilities in this population. However, most existing serious games designed for older adults rely heavily on visual interfaces, which are often potentially detrimental for those with pre-existing visual impairments.

Serious games offer promising avenues for clinical care by enhancing patient engagement and delivering therapeutic benefits. In Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA), chronic pain contributes to emotional distress, functional limitations, and reduced well-being. While symptom-tracking apps exist, few digital interventions directly address chronic pain through engaging, therapeutic experiences tailored to patients’ cognitive and physical needs.

Longer life expectancy makes physical exercise crucial for active aging, however, adherence to traditional exercise among community-dwelling older adults is generally low. Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) Tai Chi exergames show significant potential as novel health promotion tools, particularly for older adults exercising in a home setting. While promising, usability and safety issues such as cybersickness are significant barriers that must be addressed before these technologies can be widely implemented for unsupervised home use.

Music education is central to holistic child development; yet, traditional piano instruction in China often emphasizes rote memorization at the expense of meaningful understanding. Elementary school pupils, particularly novices, frequently struggle with rhythm, melody, and music theory. Game-based learning (GBL), which applies game elements to teaching, may address these challenges by enhancing engagement, providing immediate feedback, and fostering long-term learning.

This Research Letter presents the conceptualization, design, and technical evaluation of the RedMan-GreenMan game co-developed with carers, aimed to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (hereafter autism) acquire pedestrian safety skills. While the system has been implemented and is in active use, no empirical evaluation of learning outcomes or behavioural impact has been conducted to date. The focus of this work is on system development, functionality and technical evaluation.

Augmented reality (AR) head mounted displays (HMDs) could overcome the spatial dissociation between medical imaging and the surgical field, which may be particularly important in anatomically dense regions such as the head and neck. Although many HMDs offer markerless inside-out tracking at a fraction of the cost of navigation systems, their overlay accuracy with superimposition (SI) modality onto the surgical field remains limited. The virtual twin (VT), displaying holography adjacent to the surgical field, may offer a viable alternative. However, its performance is still unclear.