Video games could cut elderly dementia

A new study suggests older adults who practice specific computer training exercises that test how fast they respond to visual stimuli could face a 29% lower chance of developing dementia, results deemed encouraging by experts even as more work is needed to confirm the link.

The randomised clinical trial involving more than 2,800 people was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, and used a specific brain-training exercise called “Double Decision”, a patented programme by Posit Science available on BrainHQ.com.

The exercises tested a person’s ability to look at an object in the centre of the screen, like a truck, and click on an object that popped up in the periphery, like a car. As the user improves, the exercises move faster and become more difficult.

The idea is to exercise the brain’s ability to change — known as plasticity — and to test skills of perception, decision-making, thinking and remembering.

Study authors say the process is like learning to ride a bike, a skill that doesn’t take long to learn but that drives a long-lasting brain change. Participants were an average age of 74 when they enrolled in the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study.

Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have been published using Active data, which has now completed 10 years of follow-up.

Participants in the trial were assigned at random to four groups: one did computer exercises, a second one followed a series of traditional memory exercises, another did reasoning exercises, and the fourth, a control group, did nothing at all.

Those enrolled in the computer-game part of the study did at least 10 hours of training in the first five weeks of the programme.

Some went on to do more training over the next three years, leading to up to 18 hours of total computer work.

“Speed of processing training resulted in decreased risk of dementia across the 10-year period of, on average, 29% as compared to the control,” said lead author Jerri Edwards, a researcher at the University of South Florida.

There was no significant difference in risk of dementia for the strategy-based memory or reasoning training groups.

The findings are published in a peer-reviewed journal of the Alzheimer’s Association known as Alzheimer’s And Dementia: Translational Research And Clinical Interventions.