Researchers: Video games benefit seniors

By John Dorschner

May 31, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- A good way to keep Grandma and Grandpa mentally sharp is to get them playing video games.

That's the theory of researchers at the University of Florida. After a promising pilot with older women using the shooter game Medal of Honor, UF scientists have just received a $100,000 grant to see if Crazy Taxi, a PlayStation 2 driving game, can enhance the mental abilities of older adults.

Michael Marsiske, a UF psychologist who specializes in the elderly, said Friday that teenagers may have been right all along when they insisted to parents that video gaming was good for them.

For years, the general wisdom has been that the elderly could keep their minds from declining by doing things like crossword puzzles, "but in fact there is no evidence crossword puzzles help maintain cognitive abilities," Marsiske said. "You have to do things that challenge you, things that are new and you're not particularly good at." Like video games.

The UF grant was one of 12 announced this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to see if researchers can prove that electronic gaming can improve the health of everyone from overweight children and diabetics to sedentary college freshman and children with cystic fibrosis.

One of the foundation's missions is to improve people's health, which can result in lower healthcare costs.

For some time, digital simulations have been used to deal with such problems as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Gaming, particularly Nintendo's Wii Fit and "wiihab," has been used for rehab programs and exercise.

But the RWJ Foundation, which has a $10 billion portfolio dedicated to healthcare, is now investing $8.25 million to see if scientists can find solid evidence that video gaming, once considered the time-wasting activity of couch-potato teenagers, can be used to improve the nation's health.

"We're looking 10 and 20 years into the future," said Chinwe Onyekere, RWJ's project officer. "We're conscious of an emerging trend" of gaming and healthcare. "Games can motivate and be a wonderful tool to improving behavior. . . . But it's clear to us there's a lack of evidence" on what gaming might be able to do.

The University of Central Florida received a $200,000 grant to see if a role-playing video game can help alcoholics. Marcia Verduin, a UCF psychiatrist and addiction specialist, said she and other university researchers are designing "a virtual world in which a patient in treatment for alcoholism can handle various aspects of his life through an avatar."

The avatar -- the game's character -- for example, might go jogging to manage stress levels, then pass a bar where he used to drink. This would allow the patient to practice "prevention skills" to use outside out of treatment, said Verduin.

In Gainesville, Marsiske said he was inspired to try video gaming on the elderly after research at the University of Rochester showed that Medal of Honor, a game set in the last months of World War II, substantially improved the visual attention skills of students.

This meant the amount of information they could take in at a glance and register in their brains.

For seniors, that could translate into generally being more alert and in particular give them more years safely driving a car.

With that in mind, Marsiske decided to try the game on older women. "They loved it. It was new and different, and it gave them a kinship with their children and grandchildren."

A couple of the women complained about the game's violence, Marsiske said, but most took it the same way that younger people do -- as fictional role-playing to get the bad guys.

"From the cognitive perspective, the game makes an awful lot of sense," said Marsiske. "A large amount of information must be taken in at a glance as you scan the road ahead. You have to pay attention to what's directly in front of you."

The study with Medal of Honor showed that as little as 10 hours of play "can significantly improve visual attention and provide positive mental benefits" for those over 65, said Patricia Belchior, a postdoctorate fellow who led the study with Marsiske.

That pilot took place on campus, with students teaching the elderly women how to play the game. In that way, it was like other cognitive learning programs that Mersiske had developed for the elderly -- training done in institutional settings by experts.

To achieve the maximum benefit for as many seniors as possible, the UF researchers wanted something that the seniors could play at home, without student supervision.

For the RWJ proposal, they decided to switch to Crazy Taxi, in which the player gets points for driving carefully, and picking up and delivering passengers safely.

"We switched to a driving game not to avoid the violence, but because of the complexity of the shooting game," said Marsiske. "In Medal of Honor, you have to put out a fire, shoot down a Japanese bomber. There's a lot of situations you have to learn, and it detracts from the active game-playing." Crazy Taxi offered a more direct benefit. "It improves visual attention and helps them handle certain every-day tasks."

The concept that video play may help seniors may be new in academia, but not to veteran gamers. "That's a fantastic idea," said Jovanni Bello, 25, a Cutler Ridge area resident who has been gaming for two decades. "I've always said you learn hand-eye coordination, even leadership skills. I think that's great, getting the elderly involved. Definitely."

In Gainesville, Belchior said the research showed seniors found another benefit from gaming: It's fun.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0123-25662087