Memory game app may help people with dementia to have better memory

Good news for people suffering from early stages of dementia. It has been described as the transitional stage between 'healthy ageing' and dementia It is characterised by day-to-day memory difficulties and problems of motivation At present, there are no approved drug treatments for the cognitive impairments of patients affected by the condition Problem with cognitive training: Cognitive training has shown some benefits, such as speed of attentional processing, for patients with aMCI, but training packages are typically repetitive and boring, which adversely affects patients' motivation. The researchers randomly assigned forty-two patients with amnestic MCI to either the cognitive training or control group Participants in the cognitive training group played the memory game for a total of eight one-hour sessions over a four-week period; while those in the control group continued their usual clinic visits In the game, which participants played on an iPad, the player takes part in a game show to win gold coins. A game show host encourages the player to maintain and progress beyond their last played level Result: The results showed that patients who played the game made around a third fewer errors, needed fewer trials and improved their memory score by around 40 per cent, which effectively implied that they had correctly remembered the locations of more information at the first attempt on a test of episodic memory. In addition, participants in the cognitive training group indicated that they enjoyed playing the game and were motivated to continue playing across the eight hours of cognitive training.