The impact of chess Games towards comfortableness of cognitive Mind on Elderly

Abstract

Background: Dementia is a part of neurodegenerative process that occurs in the elderly caused by a decline in the cognitive function. Playing a board games, for instance chess, can promote the elderly’s mood as well as provide more intense time to interact with each other. It is a means to reduce the dementia effect. Based on that notion, further research is required on the impact of playing chess to elders. Objective: This study aims to analyze the impact of chess game towards a sound mind (cognitive) on the elderly with dementia. Method: This study employed quasi-experimental study. The population in this study was elderly with dementia in Lamongan, Indonesia. The selected method to choose the research location and population was multistage sampling method, by randomly selecting a location to be the location sample in this research, as well as in deciding the sample population. The respondents in this study were 20 people, consisting of 10 people in intervention group, and 10 people in control group who were grouped by using the formula based on Judy Bean’s formula in her research. The independent variable was chess game, and the dependent variable was a sound mind (cognitive). The data were collected using MoCA-Ina questionnaires and then analyzed using Paired T-Test and Independent T-Test with a significance level of ? ? 0.05. Results: The results suggested that chess game could provide a sound mind (cognitive) on elderly with dementia in the intervention group (p=0.000), and there was no influence in the control group (p=0.758). There was a different level of sound mind (cognitive) between the intervention group and the control group (p=0.008). Conclusion: It can be concluded that chess game could generate a sound cognitive mind for elders, that may lead to a declining effect of disease. Elders became more active in thinking than before and their long term memory span increased.