Sea Hero Quest: The Mobile Game That Can Help Detect Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a general term for loss of memory and other cognitive functions that is serious enough to interfere with daily life (Alzheimer’s Association). It is the most common cause of dementia, making up anywhere between 60-80% of all dementia cases. Alzheimer’s Disease International reports that another person develops Alzheimer’s every 3 seconds.
The last significant breakthrough in research concerning Alzheimer’s was over 4 decades ago, but a recently developed smartphone game may be able to help change this.
With over 4.3 million people already playing either through their phones or through virtual reality, Sea Hero Quest has created the largest dementia study in history. Even just by playing for two minutes, players can generate the same amount of data scientists would collect in 5 hours in similar lab-based research. Sea Hero Quest has actually been played for over 117 years in total and has generated over 17,600 years of dementia research. (seaheroquest.com)One of the first symptoms of dementia seen in patients is the loss of navigational skills. Sea Hero Quests tests the players' spacial navigation, and the data collected helps researchers determine the correlation between navigation and memory loss.
The game and the data collected from it can also help other areas of the neuroscience, and help researchers find differences in patients around the world in terms of how where they live can affect their cognitive abilities among other things.
The game has helped revolutionize Alzheimer’s and dementia research by acting as a catalyst in data collection. By doing so, it is helping researchers find ways to detect the diseases early on as well as helping patients exercising their minds to help prolong a diagnosis.
Click here to learn more about Sea Hero Quest.