Games for Grandpa

Nintendo is releasing 2 games targeted at strengthening Baby Boomers mental sharpness with brain exercises. These games will be played on the Nintendo DS system and priced around $20.

Players try to quickly complete exercises including simple math equations, reading aloud, drawing pictures and memorizing numbers. The game then scores the results on an age scale of 20-70 to reveal the user’s “brain age.”

Brain Age games are based on the work of popular Japanese neuroscientist and author Ryuta Kawashima, whose studies show that certain reading and math exercises help stimulate the brain.

Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Games for Health Project, said, “If you could push the incidence of Alzheimer’s back an average of five years, it would cut the overall incidence of Alzheimer’s in half.”