When you see your loved ones and people around you affected by dementia, have you ever wondered what you can do to help them? 

HBH – Seniors Healthy Brain Hub (Cantonese), a community project, was thus set up with approved funding from the Lottery Community and Howick Local Board grants. The weekly activities include exercises to maintain physical stamina, group games to develop friendship and board games to stimulate the brain through learning the rules, thinking of winning strategies and encouraging communication, etc.

We emphasise on playing board games because this can help to maintain the cognitive ability of the seniors. Board games are very diverse in their design and learning various games needs the participants to keep using their brain. This contributes to raising their cognitive reserve. Studies have found that the more cognitive reserve we have, it may help to slow down the loss of cognitive ability and prevent the rapid decline in memory and thinking of those diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia in the long run. 

At the moment we only have a few participants with mild to moderate dementia. Yet all those who come are enjoying the friendship and the activities provided by HBH. In the long run, we hope that everyone will benefit from playing board games.

看到家人和身邊的朋友得到腦退化症，你有沒有想過可以做些甚麼來幫助他們呢？

中信堂因此就成立了這個社區活動 — 長者健腦俱樂部 (廣東話)，並得到獎券基金及豪域區議會的資助。每週的活動包括體操、集體遊戲和桌遊。透過健腦活動，我們希望提高大眾對大腦健康的意識。每週的活動包括運動 (強健身體)、集體遊戲 (建立友誼) 和桌遊(動腦筋記規則、思考製勝策略、彼此交流、等等)

使用桌遊的主要原因，是桌遊對長者的認知能力有保護的作用，因桌遊設計多樣化，變數繁多，要不斷思考部署，這會提高他們的「認知儲備」 (cognitive reserve)，而有研究發現若「認知儲備」較多，長遠可能有助減慢認知能力衰退和延緩腦退化症的惡化。

現時參加者中只有幾位患有輕度至中期腦退化症，但所有參加者都非常享受在健腦俱樂部中所建立的友誼和所有的活動，從長遠來看，我們希望每個參加者都能從桌遊中受益。