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Seniors Tap Video Games to Reverse Brain’s Aging
Dailynews.com
July 23, 2009
Octogenarian George Simon of Sherman Oaks swears he has found the fountain of youth in a game designed for his grandchildren.
In a sense, he has.
The retired furniture manufacturer and teacher is one of the success stories of a pilot program launched by researchers at California State University, Northridge, who say that a Nintendo video game is helping to reverse mental aging among the elderly.
By playing Brain Age 2, participants at the ONEgeneration Senior Enrichment Center in Reseda have seen dramatic results, according to Larry Lisonbee, director of the center where some of the research is taking place.
"We've had some people in their 80s improve their brain age to the level of their 20s," Lisonbee said.
Simon, 86, is one of those who has seen his brain age cut by more than half.
"The game gives your brain a workout and makes you sharper and quicker-thinking," Simon said. "The improvement in memory, the speed that your brain works at, it's astounding to see the difference."
Giovanni Sosa, the CSUN psychology professor who heads the program, said the game helps stimulate the brain through tasks like solving simple math problems, counting currency, drawing pictures on the Nintendo DS touch screen and unscrambling letters.
"The game is designed to help work your brain and increase blood flow to the prefrontal cortex," Sosa said.
For the past year, Sosa and his researchers have been working with several dozen seniors at the center in Reseda and in one Simi Valley, who have made a commitment to play 15 hours of the game over a five-week period.
Each participant's brain age was determined from a series of tests the first time they played Brain Age 2 on a handheld Nintendo. Their brain age at the end of the study was calculated the same way.
"Our preliminary findings are that the game is, indeed, having an impact on well-being of these seniors," Sosa said. "Not only is it
making their minds sharper, as measured by our assessment tools, but it's also making them feel better about themselves as well.
"By playing this game, they regain a sense of empowerment and a sense of control they feel they have over their mind, over their well-being."
In Simon's case, he said, the sense of mental prowess gave him the confidence to fully immerse himself into his desire to write short stories.
"My whole life now is writing," he said, "and it's taken the place of (the game) because I'm writing all the time."
But Simon said he is among the lucky seniors who has benefited from a technological tool that he fears intimidates too many others.
"It's a shame that those who can benefit most are the aging generation that has a rough time just using a computer, much less a computer video game," he said.
Sosa said that was one of the problems his researchers encountered in recruiting participants, along with the 15-hour, five-week commitment to the program.
But he said for those who have participated, the payoff has been in renewing parts of their lives.
"They get a sense that they still have it - that sharpness that they had when they were working, when they were active," he said. "That it's not all gone."
Carol Thomas, 66, of Woodland Hills, a retired secretary, said the game helped improve her mental dexterity and also led to a fascination with Rummycube, a tile-based game that combines the elements of rummy and dominoes.
"After Brain Age, I found that when I went to play Rummycube with a group that I was better and could see a lot more possibilities in my numbers," she said.
"And I never felt that I was that good with math, but (Brain Age) helped. It was challenging, and it improved what I could do mentally."
Trudy Dubrow, 77, of Woodland Hills, said she is indebted to the game for improving her health, even though she was startled by her starting brain age.
"I thought I was going to die because it was something like 81! And I'm not that old!" she said. When I finished, I forget what (brain) age I was, but I was much, much younger."
"I loved it!" she said. "I wished there was more."
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