• 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

Using Your Head: What is the Future of Brain Health? (Interview Part 1)

February 11, 2013 by David Coleiro

Much of health­care deliv­ery has tra­di­tion­al­ly been set-up to deal with a ‘brain­less body’; yet we con­sis­tent­ly com­plain that we can­not change patient and con­sumer behav­iours and main­tain adher­ence to treat­ment pro­grammes. Health­care sys­tems are now recog­nis­ing the lim­its of this mod­el and that there are major ben­e­fits to bet­ter com­pre­hend­ing and engag­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion: to bet­ter under­stand how we oper­ate, why and how we make deci­sions, improve cog­ni­tion so that peo­ple can bet­ter self-reg­u­late, self-man­age and take con­trol, and final­ly that we need to do more to pro­tect and main­tain cog­ni­tion in an increas­ing­ly age­ing population.

It was whilst explor­ing such trends in Alzheimer’s Dis­ease that we first engaged the Sharp­Brains organ­i­sa­tion and its founder, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez. Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm and think tank, in the emerg­ing field of brain fit­ness and applied neu­ro­science. My recent dis­cus­sions with him, sum­ma­rized in a 2‑part inter­view, have focused on the soci­etal and med­ical shift of brain health into main­stream health­care. What we are observ­ing is an evo­lu­tion where cog­ni­tive health moves to a life­long focus as part of holis­tic health and well­be­ing. So what is dri­ving this change and what might this mean for us all?

Region­al differences
Inter­est­ing­ly, the dri­vers of change dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly region­al­ly. In the US for exam­ple, change is being dri­ven by con­sumer aware­ness and demand; many are pay­ing more atten­tion to and adopt­ing lifestyles to try to delay demen­tia or cog­ni­tive decline. In addi­tion, they are apply­ing their con­sumer rights to choose the physi­cians they feel are more knowl­edge­able and focused on cog­ni­tion. In Europe how­ev­er, pol­i­cy is more often dri­ving change as health sys­tems search for the best strate­gies to man­age a grow­ing elder­ly pop­u­la­tion. These dif­fer­ences sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact how inno­va­tions come about and devel­op over time.

Win­ston Churchill once said that the Unit­ed States does every­thing right after they have tried every­thing, and that entre­pre­neur­ial mind­set appears to be in evi­dent in brain health. The US has a vibrant mar­ket place, full of inno­va­tion. Ini­tial­ly this was fair­ly unreg­u­lat­ed but over time it has becomes more robust and sus­tain­able, with larg­er organ­i­sa­tions becom­ing involved adding to the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the indus­try. Europe, on the oth­er hand, has been more con­ser­v­a­tive in nature, fol­low­ing inno­va­tion else­where. But these two approach­es are com­ple­men­tary; although it will be a ‘messier’ jour­ney in the US, it is like­ly that we will see wider spec­trum of ideas, tech­nolo­gies and inno­va­tion being devel­oped. Then, in time, Europe will find sys­tem­at­ic ways to adopt and roll-out these technologies.

Accord­ing to Alvaro we are see­ing region­al dif­fer­ences in the uptake of brain health solutions:

  • North Amer­i­ca, again led by con­sumer demand, is tak­ing a more seri­ous approach. Brain fit­ness is viewed as a holis­tic con­cept, where main­stream lifestyle and tech­nol­o­gy inter­ven­tions are used to improve brain health; in much the same way as phys­i­cal fit­ness is viewed.
  • In Europe, where Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing games have been huge­ly suc­cess­ful, to this point con­sumers per­ceive brain train­ing as lit­tle more than an excuse for video gaming.
  • Asia has had more inter­est from an edu­ca­tion­al per­spec­tive: how they can bet­ter arm chil­dren for the world of the future, enhanc­ing atten­tion, self-reg­u­la­tion, focus and cog­ni­tive performance.

Brain health becom­ing mainstream
It is like­ly that these dif­fer­ent region­al per­spec­tives will con­verge over time as brain health becomes a more main­stream con­cept. What is already appar­ent across mar­kets is that in the cur­rent finan­cial cli­mate, new brain health inno­va­tions need to prove them­selves to be cost effec­tive (and prob­a­bly low cost). There have obvi­ous­ly been huge ben­e­fits from com­plex inno­va­tions such as MRI, but these are expen­sive tech­nolo­gies. New cog­ni­tive inno­va­tions tend to be light-touch, non-inva­sive, inex­pen­sive and often har­ness web tech­nolo­gies, which is a very dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic mod­el to the tra­di­tion­al bio-med­ical approach.

What we are also see­ing, across regions, is an indus­try dri­ven by sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy pio­neers where dif­fer­ent approach­es are tried, where a broad­en­ing evi­dence base is being built, and where large organ­i­sa­tions are increas­ing­ly lend­ing their weight to new research and development.

For exam­ple, the dri­vers’ asso­ci­a­tion in the US, the AAA Foun­da­tion, now offers free or dis­count­ed com­put­erised cog­ni­tive train­ing to its 30 mil­lion mem­bers. The prod­uct, which com­pris­es 10–15 hours of train­ing, is specif­i­cal­ly linked to the ele­ments of cog­ni­tion asso­ci­at­ed with safe dri­ving such as ‘use­ful field of view’, which is a pre­dic­tor of acci­dents and tends to decline for peo­ple in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Tri­als in sev­er­al states have shown ben­e­fits in terms of acci­dent rates – reduc­ing poten­tial dam­age, injuries and costs for both its mem­bers and its insur­ance arm.

This is obvi­ous­ly not a stan­dard health­care prob­lem, but it does demon­strate the types of cost effi­cien­cies which can be realised. If you extrap­o­late this into areas where direct resource util­i­sa­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty will affect health­care and work­ing life, you can begin to see the impact this could have.

–> Part 2 of this inter­view is now avail­able HERE.

David Coleiro is a found­ing part­ner at www.strategicnorth.com, and this inter­view is an extract from the book Strate­gic Tales by Strate­gic North. To request your free copy please email them at info@strategicnorth.com.

For more infor­ma­tion on Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Sharp­Brains work you can read the recent TED­Week­ends arti­cle Retool­ing Brain Care with Low-cost, Data-dri­ven Tech­nolo­gies.

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: bio-medical, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, Brain-Training, cognition, cognitive-decline, cognitive-function, cognitive-performance, Cognitive-Training, dementia, healthcare, improve-cognition, innovation, nintendo, useful-field-of-view

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 12,620 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