Brain Training: A Potential Weapon Against Dementia?
A recent study has sparked excitement in the field of cognitive health, suggesting that a simple brain training exercise could potentially reduce an individual’s risk of developing dementia by as much as 25 percent. While the findings are promising, experts urge caution in interpreting the results, highlighting the need for further research.
The Rise of Brain Training Games & Apps
The market is flooded with brain training games and applications all claiming to ward off cognitive decline. However, robust, long-term research supporting these claims has been limited – until now. This new study, a randomized controlled trial (considered the gold standard in medical research), offers a significant step forward.
The Study: A 20-Year Journey
The study, which began enrolling participants in the late 1990s, involved over 2,800 individuals aged 65 and older. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three brain training regimens – focusing on speed, memory, or reasoning – or a control group. The training itself consisted of hour-long sessions twice a week for five weeks, followed by four booster sessions over one and three years, totaling less than 24 hours of training.
Speed Training: The Key to Potential Benefits
According to study co-author Marilyn Albert of Johns Hopkins University, speed training consistently demonstrated “disproportionately beneficial” effects throughout the 5, 10, and 20-year follow-up periods. Analysis of Medicare records after two decades revealed a 25 percent reduction in dementia risk among those who participated in speed training and booster sessions. Interestingly, the memory and reasoning training did not yield statistically significant results.
“For the first time, this is a gold-standard study that’s given us an idea of what we can do to reduce risk for developing dementia,” Albert stated.
Expert Caution & Limitations
Despite the encouraging findings, researchers outside the study have expressed caution. Rachel Richardson, a researcher at the Cochrane Collaboration, noted that while the results are statistically significant, the 25 percent reduction may be overstated due to a margin of error ranging from 41 percent to just 5 percent. She also pointed out that the study excluded individuals with pre-existing conditions like vision or hearing impairments, potentially limiting the generalizability of the results.
Baptiste Leurent, an expert in medical statistics at University College London, highlighted “substantial limitations,” emphasizing that a single subgroup analysis doesn’t provide strong enough evidence to definitively prove the intervention’s effectiveness. He stressed the need for further research to confirm whether brain training can truly reduce dementia risk.
What Does Speed Training Entail?
The speed training exercise involves quickly identifying and clicking on cars and road signs that appear on a computer screen. Researchers are still investigating why this specific exercise proved more effective, hypothesizing that it may enhance connectivity within the brain. Understanding the underlying mechanism could pave the way for developing even more effective brain training programs in the future.
Important Considerations
Albert emphasized that the positive results apply specifically to this particular speed training exercise and cannot be generalized to other brain training games or apps. However, the findings are “extraordinarily important,” potentially saving an estimated $100 billion in patient care costs if dementia rates could be reduced by 25 percent in the US population.
With dementia affecting 57 million people worldwide and ranking as the seventh leading cause of death globally (according to the World Health Organization), this research offers a glimmer of hope in the fight against this devastating disease.
The study was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.
