The effect of visuospatial working memory training in elders: Development and application of a brain fitness software

Population Aging has been a world trend and how to keep the quality of life in old age has also been a popular issue. As one of human´s most essential and one of the most sensitive cognitive functions that would be affected by age, scientists or clinics have been trying to find out the solution of age-related decline of “working memory” for a while. Through early studies, visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is more sensitive to age than verbal working memory (VWM), so the major purpose of this research is to figure out the effect of VSWM training in elders and try to develop a brain fitness software which is suitable for elders. In addition to VSWM tasks, executive function (EF) tests and VWM tests are also chosen to be criterion tests. The result shows that after 10 sessions of training, the training effect is not only found in VSWM performance but also in VWM performance. Statically, EF performance didn´t show significantly improves. But the adjusted mean score show that the improvement of training group is still larger than control group. It supports that VSWM training could positive influence the whole cognitive functions of elders to a certain extent.