Brain Fitness Centers in Senior Housing — A Field in the Making

The Amer­i­can Seniors Hous­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (ASHA) has just released an Spe­cial Issue Brief, titled Brain Fit­ness Cen­ters in Senior Hous­ing — A Field in the Mak­ing. We pre­pared it for their mem­bers, and it is now avail­able for pur­chase (You can click here for pur­chase and down­load. $25.)

It was a plea­sure to learn more about emerg­ing trends there and dis­cuss best prac­tices and impli­ca­tions with some of the pio­neers at Senior Star Liv­ing, Bel­mont Vil­lage, Erick­son, and more, who have been lead­ing inno­v­a­tive ini­tia­tives and con­duct­ing their own pilot stud­ies. I hope you enjoy the report.

This 15-page Spe­cial Report describes the grow­ing use of com­put­er­ized brain fit­ness tools offered to seniors hous­ing res­i­dents as part of com­pre­hen­sive well­ness ini­tia­tives. It pro­vides an overview of the brain fit­ness field with four case stud­ies that shed light on the use of brain fit­ness cen­ters in seniors hous­ing com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing those oper­at­ed by Senior Star Liv­ing of Tul­sa, OK, Bel­mont Vil­lage Senior Liv­ing of Hous­ton, TX, and Erick­son Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties of Catonsville, MD.

In releas­ing this Spe­cial Issue Brief, David Sch­less, ASHA’s Pres­i­dent, not­ed “This report tru­ly under­scores how cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and sci­ence are being used to enhance the lives of seniors. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing to con­tem­plate the enor­mous poten­tial impact that com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments and train­ing can have for seniors hous­ing residents.”

This is the very first pub­li­ca­tion in the field of brain fit­ness to address spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tions relat­ed to seniors hous­ing, expand­ing on our gen­er­al Mar­ket Report released ear­li­er this year. It is very con­ceiv­able that the ear­ly and enthu­si­as­tic adop­tion of cog­ni­tive fit­ness, sup­port­ed by the sol­id mea­sure­ment of out­comes report­ed in the Brief, will help to trans­form the way in which the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion per­ceives seniors housing.

Table of Contents
I. Exec­u­tive Summary.
II. A Field in the Mak­ing: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Open Questions.
III. Case Stud­ies: Senior Star Liv­ing, Bel­mont Vil­lage, Erick­son Retire­ment Communities.
IV. Nav­i­gat­ing through the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram Landscape.
V. Conclusions.

Ven­dors men­tioned in the spe­cial report: Posit Sci­ence, Dakim, UCLA Mem­o­ry Fit­ness, Nin­ten­do, Cog­niFit, Cogmed, Lumos Labs, Hap­py Neu­ron, My Vig­or­ous Mind.

You can click here for pur­chase and down­load ($25).