The Campaign

This new card game based on a traditional Japanese card game called "KARUTA" has simple rules. The game consists of 10 scented cards and 10 picture cards. The picture cards are placed face up. The players smell the scented cards and grab the associated picture card before anybody else. Using data on the scents that people with dementia find hard to identify, we intentionally chose scents that people find easy to identify to make the game enjoyable and printed cards with these scents. As they lose the ability to communicate with their surroundings, dementia is a difficult illness for both patients and their peers. This project highlights the remanding olfactory senses a patient possesses, instead of emphasizing the painful aspects of the disease, by allowing players to notice a difference in how they register smell, creating an opportunity for patients to communicate with their families and those around them.

Creative Execution

The Scent Card Game facilitates communication with family and friends and allows people to have fun while discovering how they perceive scents differently. The Scent Card Game is being used as a means of communication with and among the elderly in adult daycare, nursing care, and rehabilitation facilities. The game is also being used in awareness-raising activities for their family members and caregivers. To begin with, we conducted a hands-on meeting for mid-level company employees. After brushing up the game’s rules and so forth based on the result, we organized a hands-on meeting for new hires and had actual patients at adult daycare facilities try the game out.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

One family (comprised of a grandfather, mother, father, and daughter) noticed that the grandfather’s olfactory senses were hardly perceptible throughout the game. As a result, the family was made aware that he would only go familiar restaurants because he could imagine the taste without ever sensing the smell. This lead to a deeper understanding toward diet amongst the family. As the family became better able to understand the patient’s feelings, they were able to improve on their communication.