Are there specific brain fitness programs for adults?

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Ques­tion:
Are there spe­cif­ic brain fit­ness pro­grams for adults?

Key Points:

• In the course of nor­mal aging, some cog­ni­tive fun­cions and brain pro­cess­ing speed slow down.
• With­out spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties to keep your brain engaged, neu­rons are more like­ly to die off with­out being replaced.
• Nov­el­ty, vari­ety and con­stant chal­lenge are key ingre­di­ents for good pro­grams. Learn­ing a new lan­guage or musi­cal instru­ment can be great options.
• There are also com­put­er-based pro­grams. A good pro­gram should include an assess­ment, a vari­ety of chal­leng­ing tasks that use dif­fer­ent cog­ni­tive skills, reg­u­lar prac­tice, and feedback.

“The gen­er­al­ly accept­ed knowl­edge about the brain is that it starts going down­hill fair­ly ear­ly in life, which is true, and that there is lit­tle one can do about chang­ing that pat­tern, which is not true. Increas­es in cor­ti­cal growth as a con­se­quence of stim­u­lat­ing envi­ron­men­tal input have been demon­strat­ed at every age, includ­ing very old age.”
— Dr. Mar­i­on Dia­mond, Pro­fes­sor of Inte­gra­tive Biol­o­gy, UC Berkeley.

Answer:

Yes, there are ways for adults to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing. Some are demand­ing activ­i­ties such as learn­ing a new lan­guage or a musi­cal instru­ment. There are sci­ence-based soft­ware pro­grams designed to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive brain work­out specif­i­cal­ly for adults who want to main­tain an agile and sharp mind.

A good pro­gram should include an assess­ment, a vari­ety of chal­leng­ing tasks that use dif­fer­ent cog­ni­tive skills, reg­u­lar prac­tice, and feed­back. It should also be easy to use with min­i­mal com­put­er knowl­edge and based on sci­en­tif­ic research.

The advan­tage of com­put­er­ized brain fit­ness pro­grams is the abil­i­ty to cre­ate an indi­vid­u­al­ized train­ing reg­i­men for your exact lev­el of cog­ni­tive skill. No two peo­ple are alike, and no two train­ing reg­i­mens should be alike. A good Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram pro­vides an ini­tial assess­ment to learn your cur­rent lev­el of abil­i­ty and then work to chal­lenge and improve both your strengths and your weak­ness­es. The soft­ware adapts to your per­for­mance and pro­vides tougher chal­lenges as you improve. It can also pro­vide cus­tomized train­ing sched­ules and feed­back dur­ing and after your train­ing session.

Look for pro­grams that focus on life abil­i­ties such as: work­ing mem­o­ry, visu­al and audi­to­ry short term mem­o­ry, plan­ning, loca­tion mem­o­ry, nam­ing, time esti­ma­tion, divid­ed atten­tion, and hand-eye coor­di­na­tion. These are all skills that are train­able and can gen­er­al­ize to your dai­ly life.

Fur­ther Reading:

• Dia­mond, Mar­i­an C. Suc­cess­ful Aging of the Healthy Brain. Con­fer­ence of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and The Nation­al Coun­cil on the Aging, March 10, 2001; New Orleans, LA; First Joint Conference.
• Gold­berg, Elkhonon. 2005. The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Old­er New York City: Gotham Books. ISBN: 1592401104.
• Hultsch D, et al. Use it or lose it: Engaged lifestyle as a buffer of cog­ni­tive decline in aging? Psy­chol­o­gy and Aging. 1999;14:245–263.
• Scarmeas N, Stern Y. Cog­ni­tive reserve and lifestyle. J Clin Exp Neu­ropsy­chol. 2003;25:625–33.
• Stern, Yaakov, edi­tor. 2007. Cog­ni­tive Reserve: The­o­ry and Appli­ca­tions. New York: Tay­lor & Francis.
• Willis SL, Tennst­edt SL, Mar­siske M, et al. Long-term effects of cog­ni­tive train­ing on every­day func­tion­al out­comes in old­er adults. JAMA. 2006;296:2805–14.
• Wolin­sky FD, Unverza­gt FW, Smith DM, Jones R, Stod­dard A, Tennst­edt SL. The ACTIVE Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Tri­al and Health-Relat­ed Qual­i­ty of Life: Pro­tec­tion That Lasts for 5 Years. J Geron­tol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2006;61:1324–9.