Researchers might have found a breakthrough in the fight against Dementia to help and protect people from the disease through a brain training. They also hope to reduce the risk of the disease which usually affects areas like memory, attention, language, and problem-solving.
Although people claim that sports make a person fit, there are many famous sports personalities, who became the victim of this disease. The list includes Betty Schwartz, the first American woman to win the Olympic gold medal in track, Canadian professional ice hockey ace Bill Quackenbush, American boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, Canadian-Slovak ice hockey player Stan Mikita, the former NFL star Tom Fears and two American baseball player Joe Adcock and Marv Owen.
However, a group of researchers from different universities said that they analyzed certain brain exercises or some cognitive training, which they think could help people to treat dementia. Almost 2,800 people participated in the programme. The group consisted of individuals who were 65-years-old.
The study included a computer-based programme. All the participants had to use the computers for few weeks. After six weeks, researchers examined them and they kept doing the same research on the patients for 10 years to check the rate of their cognitive decline.
According to Newsweek, all the participants were divided into four groups, as all these sections include different types of training programmes. While the first one did not cover any particular training, the second group provided training for verbal memory. The third section gave tips on reasoning and problem solving and the last one included a program that worked on the speed of visual processing.
However, according to Dr. Fredrick Unverzagt, a psychiatrist from Indiana University School of Medicine and co-author of the study said that the last training process became more difficult for a user. But the researcher said that when they checked those people after at least 10 years, they found some extraordinary results, as the risk of dementia became 29 percent low.
On the other hand, Thomas Wisniewski, who has been researching on Alzheimer's disease and dementia at NYU Medical School said, "It's a long-term study that has robust numbers, so I think it's believable."
"People, once they're trained on these things, a subset will just enjoy it and do more of it on their own. It's the past history of these studies that have clouded the literature. And it's pretty refreshing to see a well done, well-controlled study on this topic. Its good news for patients," he further added.
