To keep the brain of the elderly in operation, is the enigmistic or cognitive training better? A study says that crusades are more effective.
In 2022, a study published in Nejm Evidence, conducted by psychologists and psychiatrists of prestigious US research centers (including Columbia University and Duke University), found that the traditional crusades are even more effective than brain training in slowing down cognitive decline in the elderly who already have a slight decay.
What is cognitive training or brain training. The Higher Institute of Health recommends for people with dementia or a mild cognitive decline: “training, with adaptable intensity and difficulty, based on a series of specific exercises and tasks to face certain deficits in cognitive functions (for example memory, language, attention)”.
In practice, brain training includes exercises to do on the computer, or even outside the screen, which stimulate memory, verbal skills, attention, visual perception, abstraction, the ability to plan one’s activities, that of orienting yourself in space and so on. The advantage is that these are inexpensive interventions and without the side effects of drugs.
Surprising result. Based on previous studies, researchers expected to find exactly the opposite. However, these are medium: not all the volunteers who participated in the research have taken benefits, and to a certain extent both interventions have proven effective. Translated into numbers: 30.4% of the elderly who had made the crusades had obtained improvements in a test indicating progression towards dementia; In the brain training group the percentage was 23.5%.
Issue of screen? According to the authors, however, it is possible that the superiority of the crossworders was due to the fact that patients, the elderly and already with some difficulties, were more amazed towards this classic of the enigmical rather than towards the games proposed on the screen.
