ISSN: 2456-8090 (online)

DOI: 10.26440/IHRJ/0601.04530 

Elderly for Dementia - “Mahjong”

SIU KAN LAW1*, DAWN CHING TUNG AU1, ALBERT WING NANG LEUNG2, CHUAN SHAN XU3

 

Cite this article as:Law SK, Au DCT, Leung AWN, Xu CS. Elderly for Dementia - “Mahjong”. Int Healthc Res J. 2022;6(1):SC1-SC2. https://doi.org/10.26440/IHRJ/0601.04530

 

Author Affiliations:

1. Faculty of Science and Technology, The Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong, Tsing Yi, New Territories, Hong Kong
2. School of Nursing, Tung Wah College, 31 Wylie Road, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong
3. Key Laboratory of Molecular Target and Clinical Pharmacology, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 511436, China

 

Contact Corresponding Author at: siukanlaw[at]hotmail[dot]com 

 

INTRODUCTION

Dementia is a clinical syndrome characterized by a progressive cognitive decline. It interferes with the ability to function independently, such as impairing to remember, thinking, or making decisions.1 There is no treatment available to cure dementia which occurs among people aged over 65, and the risk of dementia increases significantly with age. According to the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, the prevalence rates of dementia in the elderly are estimated to be at 5%-8% among persons aged over 65, and at 20%-30% among those aged over 80. As the population continues to age, the number of older adults with dementia will increase proportionally to 300,000 by 2039.2 

“Mahjong” is a national quintessence in China who’s encouraged the elderly to play this for their brain practice to prevent dementia recently. Growing evidence has shown that mahjong helped improve elderly memory skills and sharpen the mind (Table 1). 

Alternate link to tables/figures (copy/paste link in a new browser window):https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OQZNca0cFw0ailUQhkwdU9_vL8KuhAys/view?usp=sharing 

The above information demonstrates mahjong is suitable for the treatment of elderly dementia. How can we enhance its effectiveness? There is a strategy briefly described. Why don’t we combine mahjong with tai chi or qigong in the next investigation for further development? The basic hypothesis is mahjong, tai chi, or qigong are mental and physical exercises that help to prevent and treat elderly dementia, measured by MMSE, FAB, TMT, and GDS over 12 to 24 weeks. Much more works need to be done to confirm the function of mahjong for dementia. Up to the present, dementia is no treatment, and drug with side effects, thus, mental and physical exercises are good choices for elderly care. 

Author contributions: All authors contributed to the concept, acquisition, and analysis of data, drafting of the article, and critical revision for important intellectual content. 

Conflicts of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Funding/support: The authors received no funding source/grants or other materials support for this study.

 

REFERENCES

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© Siu Kan Law et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY-NC 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the use is not commercial and the original author(s) and source are cited.

Submitted on: 04-Apr-2022;  Accepted on: 25-Apr-2022