Effects of the use of the Aging Game Simulation activity with future long-term care administrators

The Aging Game was designed to improve the care delivered by medical students to older adults by creating more empathetic attitudes toward older adults through a simulation activity. To date, the Aging Game has not been extensively used with public health majors studying long-term care administration because it has been thought to be too resource-intensive and it was not certain to have a positive effect on student attitudes in this field. This study examines data on resource use and pre and post-test measures of attitudes toward the elderly among a group of 25 public health students studying long-term care administration who participated in a modified version of the Aging Game. Results indicate that the Aging Game can be both cost-effective and have a positive impact on the attitudes of these students toward older adults. Costs for the Aging Game were as low as $1.35 per student participant when volunteer labor and donated equipment were utilized. Changes in attitudes toward older adults and anxiety about aging as measured by the Aging Semantic Differential Scale and the Anxiety about Aging Scale were small but significant in some cases. Several recommendations emerge from the findings for how the Aging Game simulation activity could be built into a broader curriculum to raise awareness of and empathy among public health student for issues pertaining to older adults