• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Cognitive Health Roadmap by the CDC and Alzheimer’s Association

June 29, 2007 by

Hel­lo, this is Andreas again, the MD/ PhD stu­dent in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science and new sum­mer intern here.

Cognitive/ brain health is final­ly get­ting more atten­tion by Pub­lic offi­cials. On June 10th the Nation­al Pub­lic Health Road Map to Main­tain­ing Cog­ni­tive Health was released by the CDC and the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion. The authors pro­pose a set of 44 actions to reach a lofty goal: To main­tain or improve the cog­ni­tive per­for­mance of all adults. This is great tim­ing, giv­en all the research and media atten­tion that this field is getting.

I want to share with you the 10 top actions pro­posed by this report:

1) To deter­mine how diverse audi­ences think about cog­ni­tive health and its asso­ci­a­tions with lifestyle fac­tors. This work has all-ready yield­ed in a phe­nom­e­nal report on Baby boomers’ cur­rent opin­ion of Brain Health and Fitness.

2) To dis­sem­i­nate the lat­est sci­ence to increase pub­lic under­stand­ing of cog­ni­tive health and to dis­pel com­mon mis­con­cep­tions. The dis­cov­ery of life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis has giv­en us a new pos­i­tive view
upon the human brain — This is still a con­cept not many know of. “Use it or lose it” and “Use It and Get More of It” needs to reach all peo­ple. See this good overview on the topic.

3) Help peo­ple under­stand the con­nec­tion between risk and pro­tec­tive fac­tors and cog­ni­tive health. Pro­tec­tive fac­tors are well sum­ma­rized in this blog post on the results from the Macarthur study of suc­cess­ful aging.

4) Assess­ing the lit­er­a­ture on risk fac­tors (vas­cu­lar risk and phys­i­cal inac­tiv­i­ty) and relat­ed inter­ven­tions for rela­tion­ships with cog­ni­tive health, harms, gaps and effec­tive­ness. As Dr. Mar­i­lyn S. Albert at John Hop­kins points it out: — All the things that we know are bad for your heart turn out to be bad for your brain.

5) More clin­i­cal tri­als will be con­duct­ed to deter­mine the effect of reduc­ing vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors on low­er­ing the risk of cog­ni­tive decline and improv­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion. Recent find­ings pre­sent­ed at Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pre­ven­tion of Demen­tia are one big step in the right direction.

6) Fur­ther, more research will be con­duct­ed on oth­er areas poten­tial­ly affect­ing cog­ni­tive health such as nutri­tion, men­tal activ­i­ty, and social engage­ment.

7) The last research focus is on deter­min­ing the effect of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty on reduc­ing the risk of cog­ni­tive decline
and improv­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion. Car­o­line at Sharp­Brains wrote this inter­est­ing post: Is phys­i­cal fit­ness impor­tant to your brain fitness?

8) The gov­ern­ment will devel­op a pop­u­la­tion-based sur­veil­lance sys­tem to mea­sure the pub­lic health bur­den of cog­ni­tive impair­ment in the Unit­ed States.

9) Ini­ti­ate pol­i­cy changes at the fed­er­al, state, and local lev­els to pro­mote cog­ni­tive health by engag­ing pub­lic officials.

10) Brain Fit­ness will be includ­ed in Healthy Peo­ple 2020, a set of health objec­tives for the nation that will serve as the foun­da­tion for state and com­mu­ni­ty pub­lic health plans. Check Here for the 2010 report.

If you want to learn more about cog­ni­tive health, you will enjoy these resources:

- Glos­sary: key sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts on Cog­ni­tion and Brain Fitness.

- Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series: Dur­ing the last 18 months our co-founder Alvaro Fer­nan­dez has had the for­tune to inter­view over 15 cut­ting-edge neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists on their research and thoughts.

- Direc­to­ry of Web Sites: some excel­lent resources aimed at peo­ple of all ages.

- Encephalon Blog Car­ni­val: a selec­tion of the best neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog posts, every oth­er week.

- Brain Fit­ness Newslet­ter: our twice-a-month newslet­ter, writ­ten by Sharp­Brains staff and over a dozen guest neu­ro­sci­en­tists, health pro­fes­sion­als and educators, pro­vides an informed, engag­ing and com­pre­hen­sive win­dow into Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness and Brain Health news.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Alzheimers-Association, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, CDC, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-health, Neuropsychology

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Balder O says

    July 1, 2007 at 1:32

    Inter­est­ing infor­ma­tion, though I think action 8 should be more pri­or­i­tized in this report.

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 35,344 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.