Abstract
Increasing age and various pathological factors lead to cognitive function decline among the elderly. The most serious cognitive dysfunctions among the elderly include mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VAD). Cognitive training is an effective approach to mitigate the decline in cognitive function. Recent studies have confirmed that emerging training methods using new technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and mobile phones, can be used effectively for cognitive training. This study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to compare the brain activation of young and elderly people during VR and mobile phone training when performing a cognitive training game. fNIRS has been shown to be an effective tool for monitoring cognitive decline. In the current study, the MMSE scale was used to measure cognitive performance and fNIRS was used to measure brain activation among 20 youth (mean age 25.33± 1.59 years) and 17 elderly people (mean age 63± 4.35 years). The results showed that the mobile phone game produced significant activation of the prefrontal lobe (PFC) and the VR game produced significant activation of the parietal lobe (MC). The average MMSE scale score of the elderly group was lower than that of the young group and was strongly correlated with PFC activation. This study confirms that elderly people have reduced cognitive function compared to young people. The results indicate that mobile phone games have a positive training effect on reducing cognitive decline, and that VR is a suitable means for cognitive function training among the elderly.
Highlights
With the rapid increase in the global aging population, the number of people over the age of 60 is predicted to double in 2050 from 900 million in 2015, and the global percentage of people aged over 60 is predicted to increase from 12% to 22% [1]
Based on the degree of cognitive decline, many elderly people will end up suffering from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VAD), or other cognitive impairment symptoms
The results revealed that the number of medium-degree positive correlations, strong positive correlations, medium-degree negative correlations, and strong negative correlations in each channel during the mobile game in the youth group was greater than the number of significant positive correlations during the virtual reality (VR) game
Summary
With the rapid increase in the global aging population, the number of people over the age of 60 is predicted to double in 2050 from 900 million in 2015, and the global percentage of people aged over 60 is predicted to increase from 12% to 22% [1]. The decline in cognitive ability that sets in with aging is a major challenge faced by the elderly. Existing experimental studies have examined age-related decline in multiple cognitive domains, including attention, memory, response, and learning [3]–[5]. An effective system or model for cognitive training has not been developed, with the current approaches relying on repetitive traditional training methods that focus on memory and attention.
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