Our brains are hardwired to fight against boredom. The most common way to get bored, though, is to turn to entertainment, and one of the most popular is watching the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” marathon. But, in the case of patients with dementia, this is not an option. They can’t engage in cognitively stimulating activities.
This is one of the reasons why some people with dementia suffer from a phenomenon called “Cronkitic Syndrome,” in which they are unable to engage in what we would call “repetitive thinking.” A video game, for example, might be a great way to pass away from boredom, but it won’t help your patient to use it as a substitute to some intellectual activity.
This is why you need to be proactive in terms of engaging patients with dementia in activities that require them to think and work. Not only will this help them remember what they were doing when they were ill or tired, but it will also help them to improve their memory. If you are going to be using a video game as a substitute to play with your patient, you can make sure they can get through it.
If you have a patient who is very forgetful, be sure that the game he plays is something that will help him to remember what he was doing when he was ill or tired. Or if you want to use a game as a substitute to learn about your patient, make sure there is an activity that is similar to what you want. You can also use video games as a way to pass time, as I do in my day job.
As always, the best way to help a patient with dementia is to remind yourself what it was like to be their age. You may not be able to play video games but you can still help to make sure they can play something for a long time like a video game.
The video game industry has a well documented problem of “gaming sickness,” a condition where gamers can’t find a game and they start to cry. This is because their brain goes into “tolerance” mode and their body doesn’t know how to deal with their stress from gaming. As a result they become unable to relax. As a result you can’t play video games with them.
The problem is it takes more effort to try and get a dementia patient to play a video game than to get them to play a game with someone else. That might be good news for gaming companies, but it is horrible news for gamers.
The solution is to give gamers a game that does not require them to fight for every last second of their life with their gaming. Just add a switch that locks the game into a mode where they can no longer play it.
The problem is that many people with dementia can no longer tell when they are in a good mood or a bad mood, and they do not have the same control. For that reason, even if a game is designed for people who have dementia, it will not be as fun as a game that works with the same people without dementia. There are plenty of games designed for those with dementia that work just fine. For example, the game In Fade of Light was designed for people with dementia.
We don’t have any more information on the game so that’s all the info we have at this time. It’s a nice game, but we can’t wait to see how it works out.