28 November, 2016
Over the course of history, dementia and Alzheimer’s have
continued to be wretched issues that affect families, people, and society. It’s
something that seems to affect anyone, no matter their creed, gender, or
background. It leaves individuals forgetting their identity, and forgetting
people they love. This article reviews this new gaming application that may
begin to help people diagnose dementia.
In this
article , it is remarked that spatial navigation skills can be linked to these
diseases. A decline in these abilities may mean it is a sign of the underlying
disease coming on for an individual. This game measures those abilities. People
seem to have issues getting lost if they are developing dementia, even in
familiar neighborhoods.
This
article talks about how the study developed a base-line ability for a typical
person of good health. What was found was with each age from 19 on, the
individual’s ability to remember and perform with spatial navigation declines
rather steadily as well that men were typically better than women. With this gathered
information they are now going to it on patients and look at a more in-depth
study. This study was pretty interesting because nearly all people in the world
know of someone that is affected by these diseases. Learning about them and
finding links can lead to helping people decline the severity of these disease
or even eventually put a stop to them.
That's an interesting article. Alzheimer's and Dementia may not come with the obvious pains of physical ailments, but the suffering for those with it, and also those around them is terrible. Alzheimer's robs them of the things they were most passionate about in life, and the relationships they cared for most deeply. It is also very painful for families and those closest to them. I really look forward to the day we are able to find a cure. A powerful film about the life of somebody with Alzheimer's is Still Alice.
ReplyDelete-JD
This post is very interesting to me as well. My grandfather is affected by this disease, and it was very sad but interesting to see his lack of direction quickly diminish. Just last year he was able to drive around town and find his way home. Then he slowly lost his way, and now will often get lost in his own house, forgetting what room he is in. I like hearing of research and possible treatments for this horrible disease, and hope the research continues.
ReplyDeleteM.E.
This is a really interesting article. My question is once they figure out if the gaming app can really decipher if people are effected with Alzheimer's, what are they going to do to help those people? Or are they planning on doing anything? How long does one have to participate in playing this game before they discover the results?
ReplyDeleteKP
I've always herd of things like mental test can help with alzheimer's disease and such. being able to predict and prevent is one of the best things science has brought to this world. with further advancement we can even prevent these diseases from happening.
ReplyDeleteMC
Does the gaming app have take into account age? I would think that people would lose a little bit of spatial navigation as they aged, how clear is it when someone plays that they may get dementia or Alzheimer's?
ReplyDeleteKI
Recently I listened to a Radiolab that talked about a potential "cure" for Alzheimers. They realized that matching the frequency of gamma rays from the brain with light that they could reverse the damaging effects Alzheimer has on the brain from 40 -50%. It is very cool to notice all of the work going on to help those with Alzheimer's. My grand mother suffered from the disease and it is good to know that there are now ways to identify if someone might be in the beginning stages of the disease so that precautions and counter actions like ones I stated above.
ReplyDeleteThis is from CDMartin
DeleteI love the idea of using existing technology for something useful as early testing for diseases. Nearly every one has access to apps and games. People could be taking some of the time they dedicate to social media to be testing themselves for signs and symptoms of degenerative diseases. SHR
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using technology for medical purposes. My question from this article would be how far in advance are they able to detect the disease ? would someone be able to participate in this study if they were in an older stage in their life ? Is this more for younger aged individuals in helping them prepare themselves for their future life with this disease ? once they are diagnosed is there a plan for what to do with the individual yet? this would all be great questions to find answers to in order to see how this would really effect the population that has or may get his disease.
ReplyDelete_MM
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThis post is interesting. There is an article that talks about other positive impacts and negative impacts gaming can have on health. The article is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC558687/
Many of the negative impacts of gaming have to do with the amount of time spent on them.
When conducting the research I am assuming they aren't creating negative impacts by having the participants spend a large amount of time playing. From your reading do you know if the project goes beyond the testing phase how much time people need to play the game?
I have seen hand held games used for physical therapy and brain games used to help keep the mind sharp.
It is very interesting to know that there are more studies focused on other areas that gaming might be able to help in health care.
Thanks for sharing.
RW
It is interesting that an app can diagnose dementia but what's the point of knowing when there is no cure for the disease? I researched if there were any cures for Alzheimers and there was not. However it did go in depth of treatments to improve the quality of life for people with this disease and I think that's great! So apps like the one mention in your article can help if knowing earlier is a benefit.
ReplyDeleteJH