McLaughlin and Allaire’s new study will follow 270 seniors as they play the Wii game Boom Blox. Gameplay involves demolishing targets like a medieval castle or a space ship using an arsenal of weapons such as slingshots and cannonballs. While those particular skills may not seem transferable to off-screen life, McLaughlin says she and her colleagues chose Boom Blox specifically because it does require a wide range of real-world skills, including memory, special ability, reasoning and problem solving.

Ultimately, the researchers hope to determine which aspects of Boom Blox produce the largest gains in real-world cognitive functioning, such as the ability to multitask, then incorporate those elements into a new game of their own design. They will then study the effects of the new game in the same group of elderly players. “One of our main goals is to produce guidelines for producing games for older adults. Part of it is making it fun so it does not feel like work,” adds McLaughlin.

This is just a little snippet from the article. I would really recommend reading the whole thing, it is a good read.

Article HERE