Game apps are a great way to engage your loved ones affected by Dementia. I have listed below the best game apps for seniors with Dementia.
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More than 6mn people in America live every day with Alzheimer’s. When your loved one is affected by Dementia, there is only one way to view life, and that is a positive way.
You can hope only upon hope for them to enjoy a natural life or at least as close they can get to that. Focus is the keyword as you try to keep their minds concentrating on whatever you want them to.
How Bad Can It Get For A Person With Dementia?
- They find it extremely difficult to understand any new technology, including Computers.
- Even the mouse is confusing at times for them!
Innovation over time has introduced us to the world of Smartphones and Tablets for seniors. The interactive screens and the smooth surfaces have helped people affected by Dementia greatly.
Here are some of the best Game Apps for the elderly to focus and enjoy and not being submerged in the world of Dementia.
My Reef 3D
The game is simple, and your loved seniors who have advanced Dementia can have a good time with it. Apart from relaxing their minds by just watching the colorful reefs inside the aquarium, there are many interaction events. The exchange is enabled by:
- Choosing specific fish and arranging them inside the aquarium.
- They can tap the glass to get the fish in place, which is not the easiest, but the senior would be engrossed in doing so, while the fish may not enjoy it!
Flower Garden
Every senior who is now affected by Dementia would have had a hobby such as gardening. Unable to continue with their passion, this Application presents a solution to their abandoned pursuit. The application allows the senior to:
- Raise a garden by planting flower seeds virtually.
- They can water these seeds and can see the plant grow with the flowers blooming.
- The activity would continue till all of them bloom.
- It gives a sense of creativity to the seniors, and they enjoy the diversion.
Flower Garden is one of the best game apps for seniors with Dementia
Pottery Creating
Anyone loves to create. How about making a pot? The app tries to bring out the creativity skills from a demented mind. And it succeeds too.
Here are the steps that your loved senior should adopt to create and find joy.
- There is a pottery wheel that keeps rotating.
- The person has to throw virtual clay at it.
- Once sufficient clay is used, the seniors can drag their fingers deftly across the sides of the clay.
- The curves of the pot appear. A couple or more moves from the senior across the glass refines the shape.
- You can create lots of different colors and sizes this way as the senior becomes aware of their creative side, which did not exist a few hours ago.
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Lumosity Mobile
An app with high pricing at $79.99 ( per annum) is also the most popular of them all. It is on record that 70 million people use it worldwide, for it is useful for the old suffering from Dementia.
The app introduces more than 25 games that aim at developing the brain through cognition. The app challenges the memory skills and concentration powers of the affected senior by assigning neuropsychological skills. The senior may realize the difficulty at first but continued
Perseverance pays off in this expansive game! It is certainly one of the best game apps for seniors with Dementia
It’s Done!
The app makes the demented senior behave as normally as possible. Every average person goes through certain repeated but mundane activities every day. These may include watering pots and plants, locking the door, pet feeding, etc. To the senior who has Dementia, even these routine activities are hard to fulfill.
Therefore the app provides a checklist of what they should do, and they need to tick it once it’s done. It cures temporary memory loss, and the procedure is repeated every day till they remember what they should do and make it perfect without a checklist.
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Spaced Retrieval Therapy – Memory Training for Dementia & Brain Injury
The app, which costs $3.99, was developed by a company called ‘Tactus Therapy Solutions Ltd.’ The app deals with the memory cells of the senior who has Dementia. It gives information to the patient and asks them to recall what had been said earlier to them after a specific time.
The time interval is first set at one minute, then two, four, etc. As time increases, the senior has to remember and recall what was said to them earlier. The twin objectives are to seal the information in their minds forever and improve their memory too. We have a separate article on the best dementia clocks.
A Walk Through Dementia: Helps Non-Sufferers Understand Dementia
The app ‘A Walk through Dementia’ was developed by the Alzheimer’s Research UK and Vision. The objective of this app is to aid the people who are taking care of the seniors who have Dementia. The caregivers are provided an insight into the plight of the sufferers. It is not in the text but a virtual walk-through. CGI is used along with POV at 360 degrees to explain various scenarios.
To illustrate this better, take the scenario of:
- A senior who buys specific primary material from a supermarket.
- In the second scenario, he takes these to his house.
- He makes a cup of tea at home with the purchases he made at the supermarket, which is the third scenario.
Although this is a simple job, the sufferer does it with incredible difficulty. The scenarios are combined here in this virtual walk-through so that you can empathize with their plight. The app is free to download and use.
Talking Tom Cat 2 is fun for all.
The app is fun and straightforward. There is a cat that you can talk to on your mobile screen.
As soon as you talk to it, it would respond, repeating it, but in its voice. The cat’s voice is so funny and hilarious that the sufferer is bound to laugh at some point.
The patient can stroke the glass and brush the cat. Every such move is welcomed by the cat when the touchscreen is stroked. The cat has various outfits, and the senior can dress them up with whatever appeals to him most.
The fun does not stop here, as you can play many mini-games with it. The success of the game or app is evident as the patient spends hours on end playing with his virtual pet. The objective is to relax the demented mind and see the funny side of things. This is a free game app.
Game Show
Yet another fun-filled app is the one called ‘Game Show.’ The aim is to help the sufferers improve upon their memory. Ever since it was developed and released by Cambridge University, people living with Dementia have improved their memory by a whopping 40%.
The app is not the solution to Dementia, but it certainly aids with thinking and reducing memory loss. The app promotes cognitive training, which enables better connectivity in the brain cells. More such connections improve the memory and encourage safeguard from the damages.
The game is free to download and available on Google Play, iTunes, and Peak.
SharpBrains
The app is filled with fun but a brain teaser too. It provides the brain of your loved senior with many exercises.
There are 25 memory games and brain teasers that would keep the sufferers excited, and their brains are compelled to work.
The aim is to reduce the speed at which the brain is slowing down.
The top features of SharpBrains are:
- Optical features are included
- The navigation is kept simple
- All are aimed at exercising the brain
Brain Trainer
Available for free, this is a game that combines
- Number games
- Memory games
- Logic
- And creates puzzles
There is a new puzzle every day, and the challenges are also unique. Scores can be kept as the senior indulges and trains in these games till perfection is reached.
The top features are:
- It helps in training
- Scores indicate the progress
- A fresh challenge every day
Daily Word Search
The app is online and is free. One need not download it. Word search has to be done over the web, and there is a new challenge every day.
The difficulty levels are three, and the patient has to make steady progress stage after stage.
It’s a total thrill for beginners.
The top features of Daily Word Search are:
- A fresh puzzle every day
- Challenge to proceed to the third and last level
- Word search is educational
Tetris
Yet another free app that is resident online and can be played whenever the senior chooses.
The games can be entertaining, but it is food for the brain too. It is a favorite among many, and the seniors would remember playing it when they were younger. The games are competitive too.
The top features are:
- Simple and no complications to play
- Challenge levels go up as the patient succeeds with the easier ones
- Running scores
- Leaderboard is available
- Free App
Solitaire
Solitaire is one of the most popular card games that are available on the web now. It’s a one-person game, and the senior must use his brain to constantly identify the patterns or suites. The memory cells undergo a lot of training, and it is an easy game to learn. One can burn away hours playing this free game available online.
The top features are:
- The version present on the web is the classic version only
- There are no ads that interfere and upset your concentration
- A solo game
Daily Crossword
Crosswords generally are not the easiest. The Daily Crossword is available online but for free. It tests the affected person’s knowledge and his ability to recall from his memory. Like other apps, there is a new crossword to be solved every day. However, the unique feature is that you can complete an older and pending crossword and jump into the next one.
The top features are:
- Accessibility is smooth
- Every day, a fresh challenge
- One can finish the old ones first.
Memozar
The card game tests the memory of the patient to a reasonable extent. It is a game in which you have to match cards, and 24 versions are available online for free.
There are no restrictions on the number of games you play. As stated earlier, there are multiple versions, and one can shift to another if they get bored with the existing one.
Chess
One of the most popular games on this planet is chess. There are a few who try to perfect it. The others play it for fun or with some amount of seriousness.
Either way, it is a challenge as there are infinite moves on the chessboard available. The senior needs a partner or opponent for this game as he can test his skills. It’s available online, and in case there is none to challenge, you can play the game with the computer. We have a separate article on the best laptops for the elderly.
The game can be challenging, and strategies have to be in place
The top features are:
- The patient can learn the game from the online tutorials.
- The senior tends to take a natural interest in the game after he has learned the basics.
- You can play the game without an opponent because the computer can play against you if the opponent is missing.
Conclusion
Unlike fatal diseases such as Cancer, AIDS, Dementia affects the quality of life far more seriously. It takes loving hands and hearts to empathize with the senior who is affected. Medicines play a minor role as the problem is more psychological.
The apps I have listed above (both the affordable ones or those which are free to use) can help solve loneliness and improve cognitive skills. Technology has certainly come a long way, and these apps are not electronic but warm and caring ones. They will definitely help your loved ones to improve their brain activity while also affording them a chance to be engaged in a fun activity. Please do try them out with your loved ones, and let us know how you liked them!