42 Activities That Keep the Mind Engaged and Bring Joy

There is an important difference between testing someone and engaging with them. Many brain training apps treat their users like test subjects — timing every response, scoring every answer, and showing performance graphs. For someone living with dementia, this approach can be stressful, discouraging, and counterproductive.

OurTurn takes a completely different approach. Our brain wellness activities are designed to be enjoyable first and stimulating second. They draw inspiration from Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) research, which emphasises social engagement, opinion sharing, and multisensory experiences rather than right-or-wrong testing.

Every activity in OurTurn celebrates participation rather than performance. When your loved one completes an activity, they see encouragement and celebration — never a score, never a grade, never a comparison to previous attempts. The goal is to spark moments of engagement, connection, and joy.

OurTurn's CST-inspired activity library spans seven categories, each targeting different aspects of mental engagement:

**Words and Language** — Word association, proverbs, word search puzzles, word scrambles, and rhyme games that spark conversation and language skills.

**Memory and Attention** — Photo pairs, spot the difference, and What Changed exercises that gently engage visual attention and recall in a playful way.

**Logic and Reasoning** — Odd one out, pattern sequences, category sorting, Which Goes Together, What Comes Next, and coin counting activities that encourage gentle problem-solving.

**Knowledge** — Gentle quiz questions, picture clues, true or false, and This Day in History activities that draw on a lifetime of knowledge and experience.

**Opinion and Choices** — What Would You Choose and My Favourites activities that have no wrong answers, encouraging self-expression and personal storytelling.

**Reminiscence** — Remember When and Describe the Scene activities that invite your loved one to share memories and observations, supporting emotional wellbeing and identity.

**Sound** — Name That Tune and rhythm-based activities that engage musical memory and coordination in an uplifting way.

In addition to the CST-inspired activities, OurTurn includes 16 brain training games across five categories. These are entirely visual and emoji-based, so they work in all 31 supported languages without translation. The approach is inspired by research from the ACTIVE trial, BrainHQ studies, and the IMPACT study — adapted for a gentle, wellness-focused experience.

**Processing Speed** — Double Vision, Hawk Eye, Visual Sweeps, and Sound Sweeps are fast visual tasks that engage rapid visual processing, inspired by ACTIVE trial research on speed-of-processing training.

**Attention and Focus** — Focus Flash, Target Tracker, Divided Attention, and Optic Flow help sustain attention and practise multi-tasking in a calm, encouraging way.

**Auditory Processing** — Tone Match, Sound Sequence, and Rhythm Recall engage pattern recognition and sequential memory through sound-based activities.

**Visual Memory** — Scene Crasher, Mental Map, and Card Match gently exercise working memory and spatial recall with playful visual challenges.

**Social Cognition** — Face Match and Expression Read support face recognition and emotion reading skills, drawing on social cognition research.

All brain training games follow the same philosophy as the CST activities: they celebrate participation rather than performance, and they never score, grade, or rank your loved one.

One of the most common challenges in dementia care is finding the right level of difficulty for activities. Too easy and the person feels patronised. Too hard and they feel frustrated and defeated. OurTurn solves this with an adaptive difficulty system that adjusts automatically based on how your loved one engages.

Every activity — both CST-inspired and brain training — has three difficulty levels: gentle, moderate, and challenging. The app starts at the gentle level and observes how your loved one does over several sessions. If they are consistently comfortable and successful, the difficulty nudges up. If they are struggling, it eases back. This happens behind the scenes — your loved one simply experiences activities that feel right for them. Brain training games also adapt within a session, adjusting display times, pattern complexity, or timing windows to match your loved one's pace.

As a caregiver, you can also set difficulty preferences manually through the activity preferences in your settings. If you know your loved one particularly enjoys word games but finds pattern activities too challenging, you can customise which activities appear in their care plan and at what level.

Brain wellness activities in OurTurn are not a separate, disconnected feature. They are fully integrated into the daily care plan. You can assign specific activities to your loved one's daily schedule, just like meals, walks, or medication reminders. When the scheduled time arrives, the activity appears as a task in their timeline with a clear "Play" button.

When your loved one finishes an activity, the care plan task is automatically marked as complete. You see this on your dashboard in real time, so you know they have had some engaging stimulation today. The app also tracks daily activity streaks — gentle encouragement that celebrates consistency rather than performance.

OurTurn's AI can suggest which activities to include based on your loved one's preferences, the time of day, and what they have enjoyed in the past. Morning sessions might feature a lively word game, while an afternoon slot could include a calming reminiscence activity. You always have the final say on what goes into the plan.

A celebration overlay with encouraging messages appears after each completed activity, reinforcing the positive experience. Sound effects add a playful touch — though they can be muted if your loved one prefers quiet.