We all like to play on our smartphone, and most have played the famous Angry Birds or similar. And these games are good for our mental health!
The study of American medical journal, Archives of Neurology indicate that playing games is that they are stimulants, can promote an improvement in our memory, as well as a delay and prevention of diseases like Alzheimer's.
For this study we used a sample of 65 elderly volunteers with a mean age of 76.1 years, 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease with a mean age of 74.8 years and 11 young people for the control group mean aged 24.5 years. This entire sample was followed from 31 October 2005 and February 22, 2011
The study concluded that games like Angry Birds that require focus, attention and concentration, are beneficial to the brain, giving you more health and slowing the growth of amyloid , a protein that causes various diseases, and including memory loss. Games as Angry Birds are designed to stimulate the cognitive activities which therefore promotes a significant increase in the memory of the player.
In addition to playing, other more traditional activities like reading and writing are also central to the brain stimulation and delay Alzheimer's.
In an interview with ABC News, the Alzheimer's Association said the study "contains some valuable new data about a possible relationship between modifiable risk factors related to lifestyle, and changes in the brain that indicate Alzheimer's disease." [ ArchivesOfNeurology ]
An example of these results is the U.S. Kathleen Connell (pictured above) with 100 years of age who, after spending several hours a day playing games that stimulate the brain on the Nintendo DS, kept his mind young. According to Kathleen "Nintendo has been a great help to me, is absolutely amazing. [...] If there is any secret to long life is to think positive and keep your mind active. "