Despite Alzheimer ’s feign millions of hoi polloi around the planet , and scientists continually research the disease and pushing our understanding of it , there is still no remedy . The best that can be suggest so far is to taste and prevent the experimental condition from developing in the first berth . To fill this role , a whole horde of brain - training employment have popped up .
Now , a new studyclaims they have evidenceto hint that at least some forms of these cognitive exercises can help reduce the chances that a patient will go on to develop dementedness . Publishing the results in the journalAlzheimer ’s & Dementia : Translational Research & Clinical Interventions , they report that speed training can cut the hazard of produce the experimental condition by an telling 29 pct . Other researcher and clinicians , however , have found issueswith the composition .
The study ingest 2,802 hefty older adult and break open them into one of four groups , include a control group . The first was given memory exercises , the 2d reasoning exercises , and the third speed exercises , which was designed to quicken up their visual processing . The participants did these test over a period of five hebdomad , with some being give booster unit session a few age later .
After 10 twelvemonth , the research worker then followed up with them to see who had developed dementedness . They found that while the first two did cut the risk a bit , it was not statistically significant . The speed exercises , however , were found to be important , but only just . And this is where the first chief trouble with the study lies , as it was proper on the boundary .
Other clinician havealso questioned the research , as it was not actually begin to look into if the exercises could cut back the risk of dementedness . Instead , the results were merely an offshoot from another labor . And that ’s when we arrive at the big problem with the study , as all the participants were need to self - diagnose themselves with the condition at the end of the 10 long time . This , needless to say , is not ideal .
“ I find it implausible that such a brief intervention could have this force and it is deserving stand in nous that the results could have occurred by chance or as a consequence of uncontrolled confounding factors,”explainsRob Howard , Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at University College London , and who was not imply in the report . “ On the basis of this study , I wo n’t be recommending speed of processing training to my champion or patients . ”
