Honors Program

Honors in Nursing

Date of Award

5-2013

Thesis Professor(s)

Kim Sell

Thesis Professor Department

Nursing

Thesis Reader(s)

Lisa Davenport, Jennifer Stewart-Glenn

Abstract

Due to the increase in the aging population older adults are looking for ways to stay fit and active in their later years. Such activities need to be fun, easy to operate, and encourage socialization. The Nintendo Wii© Bowling provides these features for the aging population. Participants in this quantitative pilot study had the opportunity to play the Nintendo Wii© Bowling Game twice a week for six weeks to see if their balance and mobility would improve when compared with the pre and post scores from the Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA). The participant’s scores on the Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment showed an average increase in both gait and mobility from 24 to 27.5 on the post-test. These participants’s were also asked to provide qualitative feedback on their experience in the study. One participant stated that she “gained confidence.” As a whole, the participants really enjoyed playing the Nintendo Wii© Bowling. This study demonstrates that Nintendo Wii© Bowling game can be an enjoyable, easy activity to motivate elders to become more active and social while incorporating exercise into their routine. It also provides the chance for future research to be conducted on older adults to examine the benefits of exercising with the Nintendo Wii© Bowling game.

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

Included in

Nursing Commons

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