Games good to spice up old people's lives

A 93-year-old resident at an old-age home plays tennis against the wall of his bedroom, using a touch-sensitive glove and wearing a virtual helmet.

For Mihai Nadin, a pioneer in the field of computer graphics and a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, this vision could become part of electronic games available to seniors in coming years to help them maintain cognitive, anticipatory and physical skills.

The 68-year-old engineer and philosopher heads a 13-million-dollar long-term research project at the University of Texas aimed at designing games and other therapeutic behavioral environments for the aging baby-boomer generation.