http://www.mcolblog.com/kcblog/2009/3/25/serious-games-health-plans-and-health-games.html
Not sure how I missed this article – or more importantly, this statistic!
These numbers came from the CEO of HAPPYneuron, Inc., a company that works with Humana to design brain games to help their patients maintain mental health.
There’s actually an entire community of health care pros, researchers (and of course, game developers) who created an initiative based on what brain-training can do for brain health. It’s called “Games for Health” and they’re having their 5th annual conference in June.
Humana’s online brain-game Web site has exercises to build specific skills, like attention and memory. It’s not as intense as one-on-one professional cognitive skills training, but it’s a start. Which also makes me wonder, if the game developer is saying that a 1% increase in cognitive activity = a 33% in risk of Alzheimer’s, what percent would intense professional brain training be equivalent to? Would a 2% increase be a 66% decrease in the risk of Alzheimer’s? How great would that be??
Tags: Alzheimer's, brain training, cognitive skills, video games
