[For Seniors] Brain Training Recommended for Dementia Prevention
In this article, we introduce brain-training activities that can help prevent dementia in older adults.
As we age, memory is something everyone worries about.
For those concerned, we recommend simple, easy-to-do brain training designed for seniors.
Doing brain training activates the brain and can contribute to overall mental and physical well-being.
There are quiz formats, riddles, four-character idioms, and even brain-training activities you can do while moving your body.
Find the brain training that suits you, and enjoy doing it.
If you’re a caregiving professional looking for brain-training ideas, be sure to check these out.
- [For Seniors] Brain Training! Recall Quiz Collection!
- [For Seniors] Challenging but Exciting! Kanji Quiz
- [For Seniors] Find daily brain training. Today’s recommended brain workout.
- [For Seniors] Lively Wordplay Game: Fun Recreation for Elderly Care
- [For Seniors] Fun Brain Training! Prefecture Quiz
- Recommended for seniors. Brain training with an odd-one-out quiz.
- [For Seniors] Popular Brain Training and Recreational Quizzes
- [For Seniors] Fun and Lively! Recommended Quiz Questions
- [For Seniors] Fun Riddles That Stimulate the Brain
- [For Seniors] Enjoyable Brain Training! Finger Exercises That Help Prevent Dementia
- [For Seniors] A Brain-Training, Crowd-Pleasing Word Search Game
- [Brain Training] Lively Word Quiz for Seniors
- [For Seniors] Recreational activities and games that let you have fun while strengthening your legs
[For Seniors] Dementia Prevention! Recommended Brain Training (141–150)
Just paper and pen! Number Bingo
It’s a simple game where you use a pencil to draw a grid and numbers on paper, then aim for bingo.
The grid is 3 squares by 3 squares, for a total of 9, and you freely choose numbers from 1 to 15 to fill them in at random.
Once everyone has finished writing their numbers, you’re ready to play: read out the numbers on the cards in order, and each player aims for bingo.
You can enjoy seeing whether a line on your own card completes, or you can turn it into a competitive game where you try to complete more lines than your opponent—either way, it’s sure to be exciting.
Cognicise using paper cups
This is a cognicise activity you can enjoy as a recreational game.
Prepare a paper cup and a beanbag.
Toss the beanbag into your own paper cup.
Gradually increase the challenge by adding marching in place, tossing the beanbag higher, or switching the hands holding the paper cup and the beanbag.
If it becomes too easy, your brain won’t be engaged anymore.
You can also stand in a circle and toss your beanbag into someone else’s paper cup, which is fun too.
In that case, increase the number of beanbags as you go.
It’s a cognicise activity that gets lively and enjoyable.
Picture matching cards
It’s a simple card game where the goal is to match the illustrations drawn on the backs of the cards.
To keep players from guessing what’s on the back, make sure the fronts are the same color and shape.
Any illustrations are fine as long as they form pairs, but having a theme—like “Fruits”—adds excitement as players anticipate what kinds of images might be included.
Increasing the number of cards raises the difficulty, so it’s best to adjust the deck size to suit the number of participants.
Ear, Nose Game
Pinch your nose with one hand, and with the other hand crossed over, pinch the ear on the opposite side.
At the cue, switch that configuration, aiming to swap hands smoothly.
The key points are that each hand is pinching a different spot and that one hand is crossed over.
Thinking carefully while moving your hands helps activate the brain.
Even just the hand-switching action is challenging, but adding a clap before switching, for example, makes it even harder and further enhances awareness of movement and concentration.
Color Card Matching Game
This is a game where you collect the specified colors from among cards painted on cardboard or construction paper and stack them in front of you.
The key point is that only the backs of the cards are colored, so encourage players to focus on the finger movements used to check colors and on remembering the placement of the cards.
The more color types and cards there are, the higher the difficulty, so once everyone gets used to it, gradually increasing the number should make it even more exciting.
It sounds fun not only with rules where individuals compete on speed, but also with cooperative rules where two people facing each other complete two sets together.
Where is the flower’s name?
Let’s try finding flower names hidden among rows of hiragana arranged in a 5-by-5 grid.
It may look simple, but it’s actually quite challenging.
Since some people might not recognize more elaborate names, it’s a good idea to prepare simple answers when creating the puzzle.
On the other hand, if your audience knows a lot about plants, including more technical names can make it more enjoyable.
Creating the puzzles themselves also provides brain-training benefits, so in senior care facilities, consider starting from the puzzle-making process itself.
Kanji Quiz: Flowers
Every time I see flowers blooming with the changing seasons, I think, “I’m so glad I was born in Japan, a country with four seasons.” How about you? Thanks to advances in cultivation techniques, you can now buy popular flowers at florists year-round.
But when those flower names are written in kanji, they can be surprisingly hard to read.
A “Flower Kanji Quiz” is great for a quick activity and works well as the main entertainment at a party.
Strangely enough, it gets lively even if no one gets the right answers.
It’s a brain-training game that makes everyone smile—I highly recommend it!