A nautical adventure or an animal safari could test the brain in more ways than one. Using these themes and more, a spate of new games and apps are hoping to identify signs of dementia years or decades before a person might typically receive a diagnosis.

Just this month, one platform won an award for innovation in the early diagnosis of dementia , and another dementia-predicting tool was announced in Canada. But do any of them actually work? And if they do, is it worth knowing …