Companion Care: How Brain Games Help Seniors in Hoboken, NJ and the Surrounding Area
As we age it important to challenge our minds, brain games (such as chess, bridge, and word puzzles) have shown to help seniors keep their minds sharp. Research has shown that participating in these and of challenging and engaging games can have a positive impact on seniors’ mental function.
Visiting Angels companion care caregivers offer many services, including playing games with your loved ones.
Here are four ways brain games can improve cognitive function and overall well-being for seniors:
1. Brain Games May Help Seniors Advance Thinking Skills
As part of the normal aging process, the mind may slow down in minor ways. Signs of decline include:
- Memory not as sharp
- Planning skills suffer
- Vocabulary diminishing
- Processing speed reduced
- Reaction times slower
By participating in brain games, your senior is helping to prevent age-related mental decline, similar to how exercising prevents the loss of muscle. Many retired and aging adults tend to no longer use their minds like they did when they were younger. By playing brain games they are able to combat this expect cognitive decline while re-engaging the mind and improving thinking skills.
Experts also recommend regularly changing the games played. Familiar activities may not have the same protective effect as learning to master a new one.
2. Brain Games May Have a Positive Social and Emotional Impact
Games can be a great coping mechanism for seniors that suffer from stress or and/or anxiety. When they are able to refocus their minds on strategizing, like when checkmating in chess, they are able to reduce stress and relive daily anxieties. These activities tend to be incorporated into a calm and predictable routine—such as working on a puzzle after dinner or solving the local Sunday morning crossword puzzle.
Brain games are a socialization tool for seniors; older adults can tend to become isolated from their communities as they age, which can lead to them suffering from senior loneliness and depression. Seniors are able to push themselves away from this by participating in group gatherings like chess club, a card night with friends, or working with a group on a jigsaw puzzle. Meeting with groups to participate on brain games and activities will help keep your senior engrain in their community while also improving their mood and thinking skills. With companion care, our caregivers can arrange/plan these activities.
3. Brain Games Can Help Seniors Connect with Loved Ones
Games may provide an opportunity to connect with family members, such as grandchildren who enjoy riddles or adult children who enjoy crossword puzzles or chess.
Many of these activities can now be played online, enabling family and friends who live far away to participate in the fun times together. Online games can also keep seniors connected to loved ones during times when social distancing may be required, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
4. Learning a New Skill May Provide Health and Wellness Benefits
Other options are available to keep aging minds healthy and engaged. Experts recommend hobbies such as learning photography or another language. Finding new, challenging-but-enjoyable mental tasks and learning to master them will help keep the mind young.
Physical exercise may also prevent age-related cognitive decline by boosting blood flow to the brain and keeping the mind in shape. For best results, experts recommend a mix of regular intellectual and physical exercise.
Experts suggest including physical and mental exercises to combat mental decline due to age.
Find out more about our companion care services and how our dedicated and compassionate caregivers can help engage with your senior loved one through games, hobbies, or other activities that will boost their cognitive function and overall well-being.
If you're interested in more information about how companion care can help your senior loved ones, call 201-533-1415.