Despite all of the exciting developments stemming from the Alzheimer’s Association conference and new research this summer, one basic challenge remains for long-term care providers: How best to treat residents with dementia today, next week and next year.

That’s why a new study from York University and lead researcher Lauren Sergio, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, caught my eye. Her team found that 30 minutes of visually-guided movements per week can slow or even reverse the progress of dementia. Results were published in Dementia and Geriatric Disorders. While video games have long been studied, Sergio’s is the first to investigate the impact of combining both types of approaches on cognitive function in elderly people with various degrees of cognitive defects.

This is exciting news for providers who may not be able to afford complicated technology, but can hook up an iPad or Wii. Sergio told me that she particularly recommends games that project to a larger screen and require a controller so that there’s a “decoupling” of where the patient is looking and what they are manipulating. Video games that allow the senior to make targeted movements are the best, she said.

“There’s an element of ‘avoid this object’ to promote control of inhibition, which I believe really helped our participants in this preliminary study,” she said.  

For her research, 37 elderly participants were divided into four groups. They completed a 16-week cognitive-motor training program where they played a video game that required goal-directed hang movements on a table for 30 minutes a week. Before and after, they completed as series of tests to establish their level of cognition and visuomotor skills. The team found a significant improvement in the measures of overall cognition in the sub-average cognition group and the mild-to-moderate cognitive deficits group.

What the results indicate is that even in the “earliest stages of neurodegeneration, the aging brain has enough neuroplasticity left that if you can train it on this kind of thinking and moving task, it will improve their cognitive skills,” Sergio says.

What’s exciting is that we often both interpret and tell dementia patients and their families that nothing can be done. While dementia is obviously still degenerative, Sergio’s research indicates the brain with cognitive deficits can still change. Even the participants with severe cognitive deficits who did 30 minutes of the handy-eye task did not decline over five months. That stability is notable.

That also brings the question: What should long-term care providers do about programming specific to this research? I asked Sergio what she thought about more intergenerational programs with nursing home residents and children playing video games together.

“I think that would be a great idea, again, particularly if it’s in the context of something like Wii or Kinect where you’re physically moving a controller around while looking up at the TV screen,” she said. “And having the kids or young adults there would bring really important social interaction.” She shared that she’s constantly getting good advice from her 11-year-old “when trying to wipe out zombies on our PS4.”

There are already companies using the concept of games to help individuals with dementia, of course, but often the benefits have focused on quality of life, social connection or reduction in agitation. While more research is needed, the idea that certain types of video games may actually keep brains sharper is good news for anyone treating dementia patients.

Follow Senior Editor Elizabeth Newman @TigerELN.