title: Positive effects of Ska game practice on cognitive function among older adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ska is a traditional board game in Thailand that involves high levels of cognition, planning, and decisionmaking. There have been no previous studies on the benefits of the Ska game as a cognitive function aid for older adults.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the effects of Ska game practice on improving cognitive functioning among older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty older adults living in the municipality of Phetchabun province, volunteered to take part in the present study. They were randomly selected and arranged into two intervention groups, an experiment and a control group (20 participants each group; 10 females and 10 males). Each group was repeatedly trained as planned for at least 50 minutes per day, three sessions per week for the continuous duration of 16 weeks. The cognitive function measured in term of memory, Verbal Pair Association I and II (VPA I; VPA II), Visual Reproduction I and II (VR I; VR II), the attention used of Trail Making Test part A (TMT-A), and the executive function used by means of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The examination was done by a clinical psychologist and a medical technologist using neurotransmitter to measure Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity, before and after the intervention. The independent variables were measured with t-test to compare the mean scores of two different groups and between males and females of the Ska group. The level of significance considered was p < 0.05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The findings revealed that those who joined the Ska group reported statistically significant better scores of cognitive function in memory, attention, executive function from VPA I, VPA II, VR I, VR II, TMT-A, and WCST compared to those who were in the control group (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference of AChE activity between the Ska and the control group (p > 0.05). In addition, there was no significant difference mean in cognitive function between male and female Ska group (p > or = 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Finding shows that the Ska game could enhance the cognitive functioning in terms of memory, attention, and executive function in older adults.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Sports Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Somsri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Panphunpho
authors.forename: Nuntika
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Thavichachart
authors.forename: Thanomwong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kritpet
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003657:Decision Making; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011340:Problem Solving; D011594:Psychometrics; D013785:Thailand