The Big Idea: How Games Can Change Your Life

To get the most out of play, we should embrace it for what it is, not as way to hone skills or train our brains

A 93-year-old woman sits in a hospital bed. Facing her is a figure in a full hazmat suit, complete with goggles and latex gloves. Between them lie some cards: they are playing a game. It’s July 2020. The older woman, a grandmother, has Covid. She also has Alzheimer’s.

Her move from a nursing home to the isolated ward at the Sahmyook medical centre in Seoul has left her exhausted, confused and lonely. Her only human contact since her arrival has been with the nurses who bring her food and check her vitals.