A webgl virtual reality exergame for assessing the cognitive capabilities of elderly people: A study about digital autonomy for web-based applications

Exergames and Virtual Reality are positive technologies which can be effectively used for the assessment and the training of cognitive capabilities in elderly population. The current COVID-19 pandemic and a consistent number of people living in small villages far from big city centers make necessary to develop applications which can be used remotely at the users’ homes. Web-based applications, and in particular WebGL, are a promising technology to cope with such needs and to design instruments for active ageing. Here, we propose a WebGL exergame for the assessment of cognitive capabilities of elderly people, and a web-based procedure to offer the game and to collect data. In this paper, we assess (i) the digital autonomy of a group of volunteers who tested the web-based exergame, and (ii) the potentiality of Unity WebGL build to create non-immersive Virtual Reality environments.