New app could be a game changer for alzheimer patients

Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading dementia charity, is calling on people to download and use GameChanger – a new brain games app – for just five minutes a day over one month.

Researchers say data recorded on the app will enable them to understand more about how people usually perform – which will later help them to identify the warning signs of Alzheimer’s.There are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK, around 16,280 of them in Lancashire. The national figure is set to exceed one million by 2021.Someone in the UK develops dementia every three minutes, but a third of cases are undiagnosed.

It is hoped GameChanger will lead to better understanding of the condition which, in turn, will result in improved diagnosis rates.

Alzheimer’s Society has worked with scientists at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute on the app, which features a series of games designed to test specific aspects of memory and thinking that are affected in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.It is hoped the app can eventually be used to find people in the very early stages of the disease and develop new treatments to stop it in its tracks. Visit alzheimers.org.uk/gamechanger.