Stay sharp for longer by keeping your gaming console on

Video games are already known to benefit hand-eye coordination, but they can help to ward-off age-related mental decline too — and silver gamers enjoy them.

In 10 seconds? Custom-made games can dramatically boost the memory of people likely to develop dementia. Clinical trials showed promising results in helping to ward off the disease and improving cognitive function in the elderly. (Read the science here)

So what is new in the world of dementia-related gaming? A new app called Game Show seems to be successfully targeting players’ episodic memory, improving recall by 40%. Episodic memory is basically the who, what, when where, and why of our memory — a lot of what we use on the daily… err, what was I saying? (Read more here)

Just to jog your memory: how does Game Show work? Oh, games! Yes, when playing on their iPads, pre-dementia patients are asked to remember what location is paired with which type of geometrical object. It turned out that virtual gold coins were enough to motivate correct responses, and to keep players stimulated, the game’s levels increase in difficulty. (Learn more about the game)

I like shoot-them-ups better. Are these games really good for the elderly?Well, it appears that they generally enjoy games. Especially in Australia, 90 percent of surveyed senior citizens said they played to increase mental stimulation, 80 percent specifically claimed games were helping to fight dementia and 50 cited better mobility due to gaming. Some of them might even be pros at Counter-Strike! (Read more here)

OK, but what’s the science? Cognitive function in older adults has been proven to improve with video games. An earlier study by Johns Hopkins University used a different brain training game. 10 years after the trial they found that only 8.2% of participants in the ‘players’ group developed dementia, as opposed to 12–14% of the non-players. Another study proved that gains in memory function from the training period were still present after a 3-month follow-up period. (Read more here)

So is this the future cure for dementia? No, but keeping the brains of the elderly active can help push back dementia and improve their general wellbeing in the absence of a medical cure. This is an urgent need, with around 50 million people affected worldwide, and the numbers growing. (Read the full pinboard here)

So what is dementia and what therapies are available?

Contrary to popular belief it is not one specific disease, but a wide range of conditions associated with age-related mental decline.

It affects patients’ memory skills and their ability to think and reason among others, which can severely impact on their daily lives.

Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60–80% of cases, followed by vascular dementia, the type that occurs after a stroke.

Read this Sparrho pinboard about new methods of new, non-invasive treatments of dementia including creative activities and the arts that offer alternatives to antipsychotic medications.

This research was curated by Tareq Yousef, Sparrho Hero and academic researcher affiliated with Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada specialising in retinal circuitry

Can thinking of home runs push back memory loss? University of Connecticut professor Michael Ego is unlocking patients’ memories by making them talk about baseball games they saw in their youth.

(Psst, Tareq distilled 13 research papers to save you 431.3 min)