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Combination of cognitive training and assessment using mobile games with elderly participants
Author(s) -
Bonnechère Bruno,
Van Hove Olivier,
Samadoulougou Sékou,
Klass Malgorzata,
KirakoyaSamadoulougou Fati,
Sahakian Barbara
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1002/alz.041917
Subject(s) - cognition , psychomotor learning , cognitive training , psychology , psychological intervention , effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance , session (web analytics) , analysis of variance , clinical psychology , medicine , computer science , psychiatry , world wide web
Background The decline of cognitive function and psychomotor slowing are two important issues related to aging. Numerous apps and games have been recently developed to challenge the brain with fun and motivating cognitive exercises. Previous studies suggest that these types of games are correlated with cognitive scales in the elderly with and without cognitive impairment. However, little is currently known about the potential of these types of interventions to impact cognitive performance positively, especially with healthy elderly. Therefore the objective of this study was to determine if it is possible to analyze changes in the scores of Cognitive Mobile Games (CMG) over a period of training to learn about the level of score improvement that participants of different ages can reach, as a proxy of cognitive performance. Methods Scores from 12,000 subjects aged above 60 years old using 5 commercial CMG were retrospectively analysed over a period of 100 training sessions. Results of the first session were compared using one‐way ANOVA and mixed models were used to subsequently investigate the progression of scores over the period of training for the different age groups. Results Statistically significant differences were found between the age groups and the initial scores of all the games. We observed that CMG scores increased for all participants, suggesting that all participants improved their cognitive performance. The rate of the score increase is strongly influenced by the age of the participants. There are significant interactions between the age of the participants and the session to predict the evolution of the scores. Conclusion The current study provides two interesting insights: 1) users who train with the games improve regardless of age, suggesting that even older adults can improve their cognitive performance using new technology. 2) The presented method is a new and innovative way to assess cognitive function since older people perform less well on these types of games combined with previous findings, as expected. This kind of assessment could be used to monitor cognitive function during long term follow‐up and help early detection of cognitive decline and dementia.