Bingo vs. physical intervention in stimulating short-term cognition in Alzheimer's disease patients.

Past research has shown that pharmacological measures can enhance cognitive and functional capacities for patients with Alzheimer's disease, but may result in unacceptable side effects. Investigations using nonpharmacological treatments are limited. This study evaluates the therapeutic effect of the game of Bingo as cognitive stimulation, versus daily physical activity, on short-term memory, concentration, word retrieval, and word recognition. Informed consent was obtained from the designated representatives of 50 subjects from six community adult day care centers on Long Island. The results show that cognitive stimulation enhanced performance on the Boston Naming Test and a Word List Recognition Task; physical intervention, however, did not reach statistical significance. Thus, a simple cognitive activity such as Bingo can be of great value to the daily management of Alzheimer's patients.