The Washington Post had a nice article recently about octogenarians using video games in order to keep their minds fit. A “brain health movement” is sweeping retirement communities nationwide, according to the article. Leslie Walker wrote that Nintendo’s Brain Age and other mentally strenuous video games have joined Bingo, Sudoku, and crossword puzzles as mechanisms to promote brain fitness in the aging and elderly.
Other video games offered by retirement communities to their citizens include one called Brain Fitness, and the virtual bowling game on the Nintendo Wii.
Brain fitness in general is booming, thanks in part to America’s aging population:
In fact, baby boomers may be the biggest catalyst of the brain-fitness boom. They started turning 60, and the nation’s over-65 population will double between 2000 and 2030 — from 35 million to 72 million people. That forecast has triggered an entrepreneurial rush to supply them with anti-aging products.
Next, Walker plugs a couple of related blogs, including SharpBrains.com, with whom I’ve recently traded links:
A growing body of research suggests that mental activity in middle age and earlier can help later in life. As a result, Web sites such as HappyNeuron.com are springing up to offer online games to people of all ages, while blogs like SharpBrains.com provide commentary on the fledgling industry.
Finally, Andrew Carle over at George Mason gets a nice quote:
“No technology trend in fitness has gotten more media attention than cognition training,” said Andrew Carle, a George Mason University professor who studies brain-training products. “What’s driving it is the jump we are seeing in Alzheimer’s, which is an age-related disease.”
References:
Walker, L. (2007, September 12). Keep your brain power up. The Washington Post, pp. HE09. [Online]. Retrieved September 22, 2007 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/09/10/AR2007091001879.html
September 22, 2007 at 2:24 pm |
[...] “No technology trend in fitness has gotten more media attention than cognition training,” said Andrew Carle, a George Mason University professor who studies brain-training products. “What’s driving it is the jump we are seeing in [...]
September 29, 2007 at 7:22 am |
It’s going to be interesting to see if a generational response of playing brain games is going to be effective in delaying Alzheimer’s. If it is we are going to have to ask was it just playing the game that was the cure or was it the generational view that play is a valid pastime that allowed for the brains plasticity.
April 30, 2009 at 9:53 pm |
I would say yes, based on the evdience that video games promote beta wave production in the brain. Since the majority of my generation (people who were born in the late 80’s and early 90’s) grew up on video games and continue to play into our older age there should be less and less cases reported of dementia and Alzheimer’s. That is unless researchers find a cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s.