From a story on futurity.org headlined “Crosswords Top Digital Games in Slowing Memory Loss”:

Crossword puzzles show an advantage over digital brain games in sharpening memory among older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

In a randomized, controlled trial, researchers determined that participants, most of them around age 71, who trained in doing computerized crossword puzzles demonstrated greater cognitive improvement than those trained on computerized cognitive games.

“The results were surprising and important as we look for ways to reduce the risk for Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia,” says Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry and geriatrics at Duke University School of Medicine who is a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and studies healthy brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease.