| glatt |
05-09-2016 09:10 AM |
Phone game app:
Sea Hero Quest
That's the website linked above, but you just go to your app store and search for Sea Hero Quest and it will pop up. I read about it in yesterday's paper. Dementia researchers work in conjunction with a game developer to make a game that reports your performance back to the scientists and allows them to get baseline information about dementia that would have taken multiple decades to gather using traditional scientific methods.
The idea is that one of the first thing to go in people who suffer from any dementia is spacial awareness. They get lost in their own neighborhoods. Scientists want to understand this better, and one of the things they need is an understanding of what normal looks like, so they can find anything out of normal. The game asks a few questions about your age and gender, and then you go on a quest in the game by trying to find goals after looking at a map. It's actually kind of fun, and gets harder and harder, so it's basically impossible to keep a perfect score. The scientists study how long it takes different people of different ages to start making the mistakes. With a sufficiently large sample, they can gain a tremendous insight into the progression of dementia.
The game tells you that you are helping research, and after you play it for a couple minutes, it tells you the equivalent amount of research it has provided. I've played for about 10 minutes and that's the equivalent of 2 days of dementia research.
I did play it while buzzed last night, and in hindsight, I think they should have a button you can click to let them know if you have been drinking.
It's actually kind of fun, so it's not just do goody stuff. |
