NEW YORK — It probably won’t become as popular as “Grand Theft Auto,” but a specialized video game might help older people boost mental skills like handling multiple tasks at once.
In a preliminary study, healthy volunteers ages 60 to 85 showed gains in their ability to multitask, to stay focused on a boring activity and to keep information in mind — the kind of memory you use to remember a phone number long enough to write it down.
All those powers normally decline with age, Dr. Adam Gazzaley of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues noted in a study released Wednesday by the journal Nature.
The study was small, with only 16 volunteers training on the specially designed game. Gazzaley and other brain experts said bigger studies were needed to assess whether the game could actually help people function in their everyday lives. He’s co-founder of a company that aims to develop a product from the research.
The work is the latest indication that people can help preserve their brainpower as they age through mental activity. There are “brain training” games on the market and books devoted to the topic. Gazzaley stressed that claims should be backed up by evidence and also that his results don’t mean any commercial video game can help mental performance. His game was designed to exercise specific abilities, he said.
