Brain training works: Study finds 10-year benefit from 10-hour training

Brain train­ing helped old­er adults stay sharp for years ‑study (Reuters):

• “A brief course of brain exer­cis­es helped old­er adults hold on to improve­ments in rea­son­ing skills and pro­cess­ing speed for 10 years after the course end­ed, accord­ing to results from the largest study ever done on cog­ni­tive train­ing. The find­ings, pub­lished on Mon­day in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Geri­atrics Soci­ety, offer wel­come news in the search for ways to keep the mind sharp as 76 mil­lion baby boomers in the Unit­ed States advance into old age.
• The fed­er­al­ly spon­sored tri­al of almost 3,000 old­er adults, called the Advanced Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Inde­pen­dent and Vital Elder­ly study, or ACTIVE, looked at how three brain train­ing pro­grams — focus­ing on pro­cess­ing speed, mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing abil­i­ty — affect­ed cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal adults as they aged…“What we found was pret­ty astound­ing. Ten years after the train­ing, there was evi­dence the effects were durable for the rea­son­ing and the speed train­ing,” said George Rebok, an expert on aging and a pro­fes­sor at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty in Bal­ti­more, who led the study.”

To Learn More:

• Study: Ten-Year Effects of the Advanced Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Inde­pen­dent and Vital Elder­ly Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Tri­al on Cog­ni­tion and Every­day Func­tion­ing in Old­er Adults (Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Geri­atrics Society)
• Book: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness — How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age
• Does brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions