Effectiveness of serious games on verbal and non-verbal memory in the elderly with cognitive disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Memory, one of the main cognitive functions, is known to decline with age. Serious games have been used to improve memory in the elderly. The Purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of serious games in improving verbal and non-verbal memory.

All international databases of PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, ISI, Web of Knowledge and Embase were reviewed and searched based on keywords related to the study objectives until March 2023. The Present study was conducted based on the PRISMA 2020 checklist and Google Scholar search engine was also used to find related articles. Mean differences (95% confidence interval) were calculated using fixed effect model. Stata/MP v.17 software was used to perform meta-analysis

After reviewing the abstracts of 624 articles, 105 articles were selected for full text review, of which 11 articles were included in the meta-analysis. The difference in the mean verbal memory score between the serious game group and the control group was 0.40 (MD, 0.40, 95% CI 0.30, 0.50; P>0.001). The difference in the average non-verbal memory score between the serious game group and the control group was 0.47 (MD, 0.40, 95% CI 0.37, 0.57; P<0.001).

Serious games have the Potential to improve verbal and non-verbal memory in elderly People with cognitive impairment. Serious games should be offered as an adjunct to existing Proven and safe interventions rather than a complete replacement until stronger evidence is available.