Ah, science. No real answers, only questions. Take this superb juxtaposition:
The Telegraph report on 17 February that computer games reduce the risk of dementia (along with quilting and pottery) based on a 1300-person sample of 70-89 year olds (N=197 with cognitive impairment). This comes from a study that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology in April. The findings suggest that being "mentally active" reduced participants' potential memory loss by between 30-50 percent. The findings were based on surveys, asking participants to, ahem, recollect how active they had been between the ages of 50-65. +1 for computer games (and -1 for television).
On the other hand, ScienceBlog reports on a study published in peer reviewed journal Alzheimer's and Dementia based on a "review of all relevant randomized, controlled trials" from 1992 to the present. The meta-analysis concluded "that there was no evidence indicating that structured cognitive intervention programs had an impact on the progression of dementia in the healthy elderly population." This one was published on 9 February.
So what are we to believe? Well, that more research needs to be done, obviously, and that we can't make conclusions about the effect of games (or anything else) based on individual research headlines. Like the analysis conducted by the team behind the Byron Review, there is a dearth of conclusive evidence in either direction, and we should take a leaf out of Ben Goldacre's book and be careful not to replicate bad science when arguing our cases.
