The decline of cognitive inhibition significantly impacts older adults' quality of life and well-being, making it a vital public health problem in today's aging society. Previous research has demonstrated that Virtual reality (VR) exergames have great potential to enhance cognitive inhibition among older adults. However, existing commercial VR exergames were unsuitable for older adults' long-term cognitive training due to the inappropriate cognitive activation paradigm, unnecessary complexity, and unbefitting difficulty levels. To bridge these gaps, we developed a customized VR cognitive training exergame (LightSword) based on Dual-task and Stroop paradigms for long-term cognitive inhibition training among healthy older adults. Subsequently, we conducted an eight-month longitudinal user study with 12 older adults aged 60 years and above to demonstrate the effectiveness of LightSword in improving cognitive inhibition. After the training, the cognitive inhibition abilities of older adults were significantly enhanced, with benefits persisting for 6 months. This result indicated that LightSword has both short-term and long-term effects in enhancing cognitive inhibition. Furthermore, qualitative feedback revealed that older adults exhibited a positive attitude toward long-term training with LightSword, which enhanced their motivation and compliance.

翻译：认知抑制能力的下降严重影响着老年人的生活质量和幸福感，在当今老龄化社会中已成为重要的公共卫生问题。已有研究表明，虚拟现实（VR）体感游戏在增强老年人认知抑制能力方面具有巨大潜力。然而，现有商用VR体感游戏由于认知激活范式不当、操作过于复杂以及难度设置不合理，并不适合老年人进行长期认知训练。为弥补这些不足，我们基于双任务和Stroop范式开发了一款定制化VR认知训练体感游戏（LightSword），用于健康老年人的长期认知抑制训练。随后，我们对12名60岁及以上老年人开展了为期八个月的纵向用户研究，以验证LightSword改善认知抑制的有效性。训练后，老年人的认知抑制能力显著提升，且效果可持续6个月。该结果表明，LightSword对增强认知抑制能力具有短期和长期双重效果。此外，定性反馈显示，老年人对使用LightSword进行长期训练持积极态度，这进一步提高了其训练动机和依从性。