You may be able to prevent or delay dementia with changes in diet and exercise, research has found. Now another possible tool for avoiding dementia is getting researchers’ attention: specially designed videogames.
Companies are marketing a crop of digital games that promise a workout for the brain, with a battery of speed, attention and memory exercises. Researchers are working on them, too. Scientists are studying whether such “brain training” games can help stave off or delay age-related deterioration in the brain.
These games aren’t what people typically think of as videogames or puzzles. In some, players must differentiate and recall sounds, patterns and objects, making snap decisions that grow harder as the games progress.
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Cognitive training, which includes anything from computerized exercises to puzzles and bridge, has been identified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine as a promising area of dementia-intervention research. There’s no recommended age to start playing these games. You can find games online or at libraries, community colleges or local chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Brain-training games haven’t been proven to prevent dementia, says the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health… Still, the research to date has been encouraging enough—and dementia so prevalent—that scientists are studying the games further.
