Game on
A speed-training game used in a 10-year study made headlines earlier this year when the Alzheimer's Association highlighted results showing it can cut the risk of dementia by half.
The study -- called Active, for Advanced Cognitive Training in Vital Elderly -- asked 2,832 healthy adults, ages 65 to 94, to simultaneously identify objects in the center and along the edges of a computer screen. It's called speed training because correct answers trigger the game to display more objects at an ever-faster rate.
The game could look like this: You see cows in a pasture. Two cars are in the center of the pasture and road signs are scattered around the edges. Now identify one of the cars (the convertible, not the coupe) and the Route 66 sign, but without moving your head or eyes. As you progress, you'll see more distractions but have less time to spot them.
"It's fundamentally a new kind of medicine," says Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science. In 2008, the company acquired the brain-training game used in the Active study. Posit Science now offers an updated version, called Double Decision, as part of its BrainHQ online service.
Mahncke emphatically believes such apps could rewire the brain, and he thinks doctors will begin writing prescriptions for apps like Posit's within the next five years. He plans to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration sometime soon. Doctors "want low-cost intervention," he says. After regulatory approval that's exactly what these apps will offer.
But using apps won't be the only thing doctors tell patients to do. Joaquin A. Anguera, assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco's School of Medicine, says treating Alzheimer's will ultimately require "a cocktail effect" of exercise, medicine and, yes, an app. "You need a little of this, a little of that and a little of another."
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id383989837
