Nintendo DS, Helping Evade Alzheimer’s Disease

Timesonline published an article today, depicting how the Nintendo DS can help “grown ups” improve brain power, adopted by 40-year-olds, embraced by 60-year-olds.

According to the article there is evidence that gaming has physiological effects on the body, Dr Simon Moore, a leader in psychology at London Metropolitan University, is emphatic, affirms it “Definitely,” he says. His department is known for its work exploring the link between computer games and health.

“Volunteers taking part provided a saliva sample before and after playing a simple go-kart racing game for five minutes at the museum. The volunteers believed that they were playing against a specified type of opponent: male, female, experienced, inexperienced. The samples were then analysed to measure how the game and the knowledge about their opponent affected stress-hormone levels and immune activity. The results were fascinating.”

“The saliva of a red-hot male gamer, who lost to an inexperienced woman, indicated that a drop in immune activity had taken place (therefore the subject was more stressed); whereas there was an opposite effect in an 82-year-old man who did better than he expected.”

According to another study, games like Brain Age (2) are becoming more popular among the older gamers, “These games are keeping your brain stimulated.. and give your brain the workout it craves in order to stay sharp.” says Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski dean of the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Obviously playing your Nintendo DS until you are 80 will not make you immune to such memory diseases like Alzheimer’s, but if this article and the many studies done regarding these games, you might have a chance to have a decent memory at 80, or at least remember to zip your zipper without having your grandson remind you about it… wait, is it just my grandpa?
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