  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.
