Well, most of you must have played the computer-based card game, Free Cell. Nobody knew until today that this simple card game could one day lead to an innovation. Scientists at the OHSU Oregon Center for Aging & Technology (ORCATECH) have found that the Free Cell card game, when adaptive with cognitive performance assessment algorithms, could be used to differentiate the persons with memory problems and cognitively healthy seniors. An abstract from the study...
People with mild cognitive impairment are at high risk of developing dementia, which is most commonly caused by Alzheimer disease. The discovery could help doctors plan early treatment strategies by detecting subtle cognitive changes over time in the natural setting of an elder’s home.
“We discovered that we can take an existing computer game that people already have found enjoyable and extract cognitive assessment measures from it,” said ORCATECH investigator Holly Jimison, PhD, associate professor of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology, OHSU School of Medicine, and the study’s lead author.
In FreeCell, players are dealt 52 cards face up in eight columns, with four columns having seven cards and the others having six. The object is to move all the cards into four single-card free “cells” in four suit piles stacked from lowest to highest rank.
“It requires significant planning to play well, and planning is one measure that neuropsychologists attempt to test in clinical situations,” Jimison said. “We’re trying to replicate that, and we’ve been able to show that we can, at least in early studies with small numbers of people, show distinctions between cognitively healthy elders and those with even mild cognitive impairment.”
“It’s a lot easier to treat someone when symptoms are just starting as opposed to when a full-blown crisis occurs,” Kaye said.
Thanks: Holly Jimison
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