• 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

Posit Science Program Classic and InSight: Alzheimer’s Australia

September 24, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Brain-fit­ness plan can improve mem­o­ry (Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald), reports on the recent endorse­ment of Posit Sci­ence’s pro­grams (Posit Sci­ence Pro­gram Clas­sic, focused on audi­to­ry pro­cess­ing train­ing, and Posit Sci­ence Cor­tex™ with InSight™, on visu­al pro­cess­ing). Quotes:

- “While the group says it has con­cerns about endors­ing a com­mer­cial prod­uct sell­ing for almost $400, it is con­fi­dent the ben­e­fits to the com­mu­ni­ty will be wide-ranging.”

- “Like­ly pur­chasers of the pro­gram include nurs­ing homes, libraries and tele­cen­tres and groups sup­port­ing and ser­vic­ing demen­tia sufferers.”

- “This is core busi­ness for us … one of our clear strate­gic objec­tives is to assist the com­mu­ni­ty to reduce the risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia,” Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia strate­gic direc­tions gen­er­al man­ag­er David Grib­ble said in Perth on Friday.

- “(It is) one of the sev­en aspects of lifestyle that all of the research shows will reduce risk is stay­ing men­tal­ly active.”

Com­ment: Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia is adopt­ing a more aggres­sive atti­tude than peers in oth­er coun­tries (such as the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion here in the US). Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia first endorsed Nin­ten­do Brain Age (also called Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing) and now the Posit Sci­ence pro­grams (both Posit Sci­ence Pro­gram Clas­sic and Posit Sci­ence Cor­tex™ with InSight™.

This brings to sur­face a gen­uine pub­lic health dilem­ma: do you, as an asso­ci­a­tion, pro­mote pro­grams before they have been shown to have long-term effects on Alzheimer’s pro­gres­sion and preva­lence, or do you wait until you have “per­fect” research, and then per­haps lose 10–20-30 years or use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to thousands/ mil­lions of brain’s Cog­ni­tive Reserves? A tough judg­ment call.

In my view, it may well be worth to offer inter­ven­tions that are free of side effects (apart from time and mon­ey invest­ed) as long as Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia does a seri­ous job of inde­pen­dent­ly mea­sur­ing the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits that may be brought by the pro­grams. For exam­ple, Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia could offer free or reduced-cost online cog­ni­tive assess­ments to the pub­lic at large, and to peo­ple buy­ing the Posit Sci­ence pro­grams (and the Nin­ten­do ones), to enable pret­ty fas­ci­nat­ing ongo­ing com­par­a­tive research.

Per­haps time to call lead­ing Aus­tralian cog­ni­tive assess­ment com­pa­nies such as Brain Resource and CogState?

Rel­e­vant inter­views with scientists:

- Build Your Cog­ni­tive Reserve-Yaakov Stern.

- Art Kramer on Why We Need Walk­ing Book Clubs.

- Improv­ing Dri­ving Skills and Brain Func­tion­ing- Inter­view with ACTIVE’s Jer­ri Edwards.

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: ACTIVE, Alzheimers, Alzheimers-Association, Alzheimers-Australia, Art-Kramer, auditory-processing, Brain-fitness-plan, Brain-Resource, Brain-Training, cognitive-assessments, cognitive-reserve, CogState, dementia, endorsement, improve-brain-functioning, improve-driving-skills, improve-memory, Jerri-Edwards, libraries, mentally-active, Nintendo-Brain-Age, nintendo-brain-training, nursing-homes, posit-science-brain-fitness-program, Posit-Science-Cortex-with-InSight, Posit-Science-Program-Classic, visual-processing, Yaakov-Stern

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jean says

    September 25, 2008 at 6:54

    This is great, I just wish Alzheimer orga­ni­za­tions in the US would be as proac­tive as this one in Aus­tralia. I have used both Posit Sci­ence pro­grams and love them and feel like my life is real­ly bet­ter because of them. Although buy­ing both can be pricey it was worth the nick­els I scratched together.

  2. David Gribble says

    September 30, 2008 at 8:05

    Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia WA enlist­ed Curtin Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre for Research on Age­ing to con­duct a lit­er­a­ture and provider review into neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and mem­o­ry enhance­ment in old­er peo­ple. The result of a two year process of inves­ti­ga­tion and review by our organ­i­sa­tion iden­ti­fied Posit Sci­ence as the only provider who had a sig­nif­i­cant body of clin­i­cal tri­al evi­dence to sup­port the effi­ca­cy of their products. 

    Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia sup­ports the Posit Sci­ence pro­grams as one way of stay­ing men­tal­ly active (a demen­tia risk reduc­tion strat­e­gy that we clear­ly sup­port) that also pro­vides proven indi­vid­ual ben­e­fit to mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive func­tion in peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing age-relat­ed mem­o­ry loss. 

    The organ­i­sa­tion does not pro­mote these pro­grams to peo­ple with demen­tia, nor on the basis that using them will delay or pre­vent demen­tia. Very pre­lim­i­nary pilot study evi­dence indi­cates they may have some ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fit for peo­ple with ear­ly demen­tia or MCI, and Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia WA is cur­rent­ly engaged with Curtin and Edith Cow­an Uni­ver­si­ties here in Aus­tralia to under­take pilot stud­ies to explore this further. 

    We are also under­tak­ing an 18-month gov­ern­ment-fund­ed demon­stra­tion project to tri­al the use of these pro­grams in res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties, senior’s fit­ness groups and the work­place, and eval­u­a­tion of both indi­vid­ual ben­e­fit and the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of each group mod­el will be under­tak­en as part of this process.

  3. Alvaro Fernandez says

    October 7, 2008 at 5:32

    David, please see my answer to your com­ment here:
    http://tinyurl.com/3t5wjd

    Thank you!

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 12,515 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.

© 2023 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy