Could playing computer games help people with dementia stay sharper for longer?
Researchers at the University of Alberta believe the answer may be yes.
They have developed a new way to measure how engaged players are when gaming—a crucial step toward turning video games into effective therapies for cognitive decline.
Dementia affects memory, attention, and decision-making, and there is currently no cure.
With nearly one million Canadians expected to be living with dementia by 2030, scientists are urgently looking for new ways to improve quality of life and slow down the condition’s progression.
“People are living longer, which means the risk of dementia keeps rising,” explains Adriana Ríos Rincón, an associate professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.
“We need creative, alternative ways to treat or even prevent these disorders.”
Computer games are one promising option. They can stimulate memory, attention, and problem-solving skills. But there’s a catch: for games to help, people need to stay engaged long enough to get the benefits.
Typically, researchers ask players to fill out questionnaires to measure engagement. Yet for those living with dementia, answering long or complex questions is often not possible.
To get around this problem, Ríos Rincón and her team turned to brain science. Using headsets that record brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG), they tracked how mentally and emotionally involved players were in real time.
In their study, younger and older adults played a simple stunt plane game developed at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. The game was chosen because it challenges attention and multitasking without being too complicated. As participants played, EEG headsets measured three types of brain waves—theta, alpha, and beta—known to reflect levels of mental focus.
“When someone is really focused, beta waves increase, while theta and alpha waves decrease,” Ríos Rincón explains. The team confirmed this pattern: players were most engaged when the game was neither too easy nor too hard. In other words, the sweet spot came when the challenge matched the person’s skills.
The researchers also trained a machine learning model to sort players into “high” or “low” engagement categories. The model worked best when it combined all three brain wave signals. “We showed that it’s possible to measure engagement objectively, even when people can’t explain it themselves,” says Ríos Rincón.
The next step is to apply this method to older adults with dementia. The goal is to design adaptive games that adjust their difficulty as players progress, keeping engagement at the optimal level—sometimes called a state of “flow.”
Ríos Rincón also wants to test whether improvements gained in the game, such as better attention or memory, carry over into daily life.
“If people feel more confident, independent, and capable in everyday activities because of gaming, that could be a powerful way to improve their well-being,” she says.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about inflammation that may actually slow down cognitive decline in older people, and low vitamin D may speed up cognitive decline.
For more health information, please see recent studies about common exercises that could protect against cognitive decline, and results showing this MIND diet may protect your cognitive function, prevent dementia.
