Soroban for adults and seniors: brain training or dementia prevention?

Looking for brain training for a parent, or worried about your own memory? What the research can and cannot say.

No evidence yet lets anyone say "soroban prevents dementia", but there are leads. In a randomised trial at Showa University (Takaoka et al., PLOS ONE, 2024), 20 healthy adults aged 42–79 used an abacus-based mental calculation app at home for six months; the app group improved on an attention-shifting test and a planning test relative to controls, while a dementia screen (MoCA) and memory tests did not change. Adult soroban works as a short daily exercise in calculation, not as a way to prevent or treat disease.

What the studies found

1. Randomised trial in middle-aged and older adults (six months). 20 people aged 42–79 attending community dementia-prevention activities were randomly split; 10 used an abacus-based mental calculation app at home for six months (about 25 minutes a day). That group improved on "follow the order" (attention shifting) at two months and on a route-planning task at six months. Total MoCA-J, visuospatial and working-memory scores did not differ. The authors list the small sample and lack of follow-up as limitations (Takaoka et al., PLOS ONE, 2024).
2. Pilot study in mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease. 20 Spanish participants (mean age 73.6; 6 healthy, 6 with MCI, 8 with early Alzheimer's) did ten sessions over five weeks of a programme built around calculation on a Japanese abacus. MMSE rose from 23.1 to 24.9. There was no control group, the sample was small and follow-up was about one month (Matías-Guiu et al., Neurología, 2016).
3. "Learning therapy" with simple arithmetic and reading aloud. Joint research by Tohoku University and Kumon reported improved frontal-function (FAB) and MMSE scores in older adults with dementia who did short daily reading and simple written calculation. Not soroban, but it shares the "short, simple, daily calculation" principle.
4. Mechanism from child studies. Expert mental-abacus users calculate with bilateral parietal and frontal regions (Hanakawa et al., 2003), and long-trained children use frontal-parietal regions more efficiently in executive tasks (Wang et al., 2017). Whether adults show the same change is still being studied.

What cannot be claimed (important)

• That it prevents, delays or treats dementia. Dementia screening did not change in the trial above.
• That forgetfulness decreases. The gains were in attention shifting and planning; memory tests did not move.
• That it replaces medical advice. Memory concerns belong with a doctor first.

Soroban Kingdom is not a medical device and does not guarantee any effect. Use it as a tool for five minutes of calculation a day, with mistakes shown and corrected.

How an adult should start

• Slower than children is fine. Adults have a strong written-arithmetic habit and the bead image takes longer (how anzan works).
• Look at the mistakes. Adult errors are almost always the 5- and 10-complement bead moves. Soroban Kingdom infers the likely wrong move from the answer, shows it as a diagram and builds the next day's practice from it.
• Practise with a grandchild. The Home plan covers up to three learners at one price, and an adult can be one of them. Competing at the same level keeps both going.
• The screen is child-styled. Characters and large buttons appear. If that bothers you, the English interface (?lang=en) is the calmer of the two.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an upper age limit?

No. The trial above went up to 79. Reading numerals and moving the fingers is enough.

How long per day?

The trial averaged 25 minutes, but start with five. A length you keep daily beats a long session.

Do I need a physical soroban?

Better with one. Moving real beads is what builds the image. The on-screen soroban works, but a basic one costs little.

Can a family member with dementia use it?

Ask their doctor first. The pilot study in MCI and early Alzheimer's was small and uncontrolled and guarantees nothing. If the person enjoys it, use it as a short shared activity.