A new game available on the App Store and Google Play is currently raking downloads as it aims to help scientists fight dementia. Created by GLITCHERS, "Sea Hero Quest" challenges one's navigational skills in visually-appealing graphics. Playing for just two minutes already generates 5 hours of lab-based research data.
Gameplay is simple. Players are tasked to sail in search of artifacts (which are actually lost memories) around the world. As told by CNN, the game aims to have many people playing so as to determine the normal range of navigation skills. The game is presented by Deutsche Telekom and supported by scientists from the University College London, University of East Anglia and Alzheimer's Research UK.
Hilary Evans, chief executive at Alzheimer's Research UK, is impressed at the method's scale. She says via BBC, "We have never seen anything undertaken in dementia research at this scale before. The largest spatial navigation study to date comprised fewer than 600 volunteers."
"Providing the research community with access to an open-source data set of this nature, at this scale, in such a short period of time is exactly the kind of innovation required to unlock the next breakthrough in dementia research," she adds.
"Sea Hero Quest" tells the story of a father and son who once set out together to discover sea creatures, Fortune notes. The unfortunate happens as the father loses his memories; the hope lies in the player helping his son to search for them. It must be noted that the game tracks data anonymously.
Dementia, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a group of symptoms "affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with daily functioning." It is caused by damage to nerve cells in the brain, and depending on the area affected, it manifests symptoms differently. Irreversible types of dementia include Alzheimer's Disease, vascular dementia, lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia.
Are you ready to help with dementia research? Download "Sea Hero Quest" for iOS and Android today. It's free.
