The Hong Kong Medical Association said it’s found that playing board games can be quite effective in slowing down dementia in patients, and urged the government to invest more resources into expanding such programmes.

The association rolled out a pilot scheme from June to September, and got 18 of its volunteers to play board games with eight elderly dementia patients aged between 69 and 89.

Different board games, such as puzzles, mahjong and Chinese checkers, were assigned to the patients based on the outcome of their individual assessment.

“We hope to raise the public’s awareness that besides taking medicines and visiting doctors, cognitive stimulation is also important, especially for those at the early to middle stages of dementia,” Elvis Lai, who led the pilot programme, said.

He said after eight game-based training sessions, all elderly participants showed improvement in participation, emotion and communication – key areas corresponding to symptoms of dementia.

The association’s president, Cheng Chi-man, noted that there are multiple benefits with the programme, because it can also address problems like social isolation and improve head-eye-hand coordination in elderly people.

But he said more government support is needed to promote programmes like this across the city, as dementia cases continue to rise.

“The government subsidised us for the visiting events. And afterwards somehow the money dried out and we received no more money from the government,” he said.