AAA-Foundation-for-Traffic-Safety

Thank you, Summit Speakers, Participants and Sponsors!

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What a fan­tas­tic, diverse, stim­u­lat­ing, for­ward-look­ing Sum­mit we enjoyed last week. Thank you so much, every­one, for your par­tic­i­pa­tion and contributions!!

Spe­cial thanks go to the orga­ni­za­tions at the lead­ing edge who sup­port­ed this unique event as Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors

arpf

The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), estab­lished in 1993, is ded­i­cat­ed to reduc­ing the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s dis­ease by con­duct­ing clin­i­cal research and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al outreach.

 FitBrains_webFit Brains is a cut­ting-edge, brain-train­ing pro­gram brought to you by Roset­ta Stone, a pre­mier learn­ing com­pa­ny with lead­ing prod­ucts used by schools, busi­ness and gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions, and mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als around the world.

Silver Sponsors

AAAFoundation

The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty was found­ed in 1947 by AAA to iden­ti­fy traf­fic safe­ty prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion­al materials.

Arrowsmith ProgramThe Arrow­smith Pro­gram, avail­able in pub­lic and pri­vate schools in the U.S., Cana­da, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, is a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties that tar­gets 19 areas that are most com­mon­ly involved in learning.

CC-ABHI_BaycrestBay­crest, ful­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, is one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­m­ic health sci­ences cen­ters focused on aging, and will host the new $100m+ Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion.

Brain­Base­line is the first iPad appli­ca­tion for mea­sur­ing how well your brain works. Devel­oped by Dig­i­tal Arte­facts, it helps users world­wide under­stand how demo­graph­ic fac­tors and leisure activ­i­ties impact over­all brain health.

Lumosity

Lumos­i­ty is a lead­ing brain train­ing com­pa­ny with more than 70 mil­lion mem­bers from 180 coun­tries. Found­ed in 2005 and launched in 2007, Lumos­i­ty offers more than 40 games that are designed to chal­lenge core cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Lumosity’s games are based on neu­ro­science, with con­tin­u­ing inde­pen­dent third-par­ty stud­ies being con­duct­ed by researchers at aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions around the world.

Bronze Sponsors

brainHQ

brain­HQ is a brain train­ing sys­tem built by Posit Sci­ence to help peo­ple be at their best through­out their lives. Their team of experts designs, tests, and refines online exer­cis­es that effec­tive­ly address cog­ni­tive issues relat­ed to healthy aging and oth­er conditions.

Cog­niFit is a health­care com­pa­ny spe­cial­ized in brain fit­ness soft­ware. Since 1999, the firm has designed and devel­oped com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments and online brain train­ing applications.

Peak, found­ed by a group of indi­vid­u­als from Google, Ama­zon and EA who believe in rein­vent­ing edu­ca­tion through mobile, games and sci­ence. Lead by neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive learn­ing experts, Peak devel­ops mobile apps that enables users world­wide to improve their cog­ni­tive skills for a health­i­er, sharp­er life.

Thank You, Leading Sponsors @ 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

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Please join us in thank­ing these lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions for sup­port­ing the upcom­ing  2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Novem­ber 17–19th).

In alpha­bet­i­cal order, our heart­felt appre­ci­a­tion goes to the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty, the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion, the Arrow­smith Pro­gram, Bay­crest, Brain­Base­line, Cog­niFit, Peak and Roset­ta Stone (and more to fol­low). Thank you!

Gold Sponsors

 

arpfThe Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), estab­lished in 1993, is ded­i­cat­ed to reduc­ing the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s dis­ease by con­duct­ing clin­i­cal research and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al outreach.

RosettaStoneRoset­ta Stone Inc. (NYSE:RST) is ded­i­cat­ed to chang­ing the way the world learns. The com­pa­ny’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven lan­guage, read­ing and brain-fit­ness solu­tions are used by thou­sands of schools, busi­ness­es, gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions and mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als around the world.

Silver Sponsors

AAAFoundationThe AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty was found­ed in 1947 by AAA to con­duct research to address grow­ing high­way safe­ty issues. The organization’s mis­sion is to iden­ti­fy traf­fic safe­ty prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion­al materials.

Arrowsmith ProgramThe Arrow­smith Pro­gram, avail­able in pub­lic and pri­vate schools in the U.S., Cana­da, Aus­tralia and New Zealand is a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties that tar­gets 19 areas of the brain that are most com­mon­ly involved in learning.

baycrestBay­crest, ful­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, is one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­m­ic health sci­ences cen­ters focused on aging, and will host the new $100m+ Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation.

Brain­Base­line is the first iPad appli­ca­tion for mea­sur­ing how well your brain works. Devel­oped by Dig­i­tal Arte­facts, a team of high­ly skilled com­put­er sci­en­tists, artists, and engi­neers, it helps users under­stand how leisure activ­i­ties impact over­all brain health.

Bronze Sponsors

Cog­niFit is a health­care com­pa­ny spe­cial­ized in brain fit­ness soft­ware. We design and devel­op com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments and online brain train­ing applications.

Peak, lead by neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive learn­ing experts, devel­ops mobile apps that enables users world­wide to improve their cog­ni­tive skills for a health­i­er, sharp­er life.

Peter Kissinger on Brain Retraining for U.S. Drivers

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The Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty will pro­vide an update on Brain Retrain­ing for U.S. Dri­vers, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (June 7–14th, 2012), dis­cussing the progress of this  ini­tia­tive since 2009.

J. Peter Kissinger is the Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty, a posi­tion he assumed in May of 2002. The Foun­da­tion is a pub­licly sup­ported, char­i­ta­ble research and edu­ca­tional orga­ni­za­tion [Read more…] about Peter Kissinger on Brain Retrain­ing for U.S. Drivers

Can Brain Fitness Innovation Enhance Cognitive Rehab and Driving Safety?

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Today we share must-read insights from  Kather­ine Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter, and Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty. Both of them will dis­cuss their ongo­ing work and lessons learned at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011). The inter­views below were con­duct­ed via email.

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Kather­ine Sul­li­van is the Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Center.

1. Kather­ine, how would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

In our con­text (help­ing active duty ser­vice mem­bers and vet­er­ans recov­er from cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion most asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic brain injury), I’d say brain fit­ness is the out­come we work towards: the cog­ni­tive resources required to return to duty or rein­te­grate into dai­ly and pro­fes­sion­al lives as much as pos­si­ble. In this sense, [Read more…] about Can Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Enhance Cog­ni­tive Rehab and Dri­ving Safety?

New Report Finds A Brain Health Revolution in the Making, Driven by Digital Technology and Neuroplasticity Research

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2010MarketReportIn spite of the recent eco­nom­ic down­turn, rev­enues for dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to assess, enhance and treat cog­ni­tion, or dig­i­tal brain health and fit­ness tools, grew 35% in 2009. “The con­ver­gence of demo­graph­ic and pol­i­cy trends with cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion is giv­ing birth to a nascent mar­ket­place that can fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­form what brain health is, how it is mea­sured, and how it is done,” says Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, mem­ber of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Coun­cil on the Aging Soci­ety and Edi­tor-in-Chief of the report. “This ground­break­ing report can help pio­neers shape the emerg­ing toolk­it to ben­e­fit an aging soci­ety that increas­ing­ly seeks new ways to enhance cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­i­ty and men­tal well­ness across the lifespan.”

“As the brain is thrust into the cen­ter of the health­care ecosys­tem, inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness appli­ca­tions will play an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role in defin­ing neu­ro­cen­tric health,” adds Jake Duna­gan, Research Direc­tor at the Insti­tute For The Future.

Report: Trans­form­ing Brain Health with Dig­i­tal Tools to Assess, Enhance and Treat Cog­ni­tion across the Lifes­pan: The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010. 

A major­i­ty among the 1,900+ deci­sion-mak­ers and ear­ly-adopters sur­veyed said they trust­ed the effec­tive­ness of non-inva­sive options above inva­sive options to enhance crit­i­cal brain func­tion­al­i­ty. Pro­fes­sion­al and intel­lec­tu­al chal­lenges were rat­ed very effec­tive by 61% of respon­dents, aer­o­bic exer­cise and read­ing books by 42%, med­i­ta­tion by 38%, com­put­er­ized brain train­ing by 26%, tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs by 13%, tak­ing sup­ple­ments by 12%, and self-med­icat­ing with drugs by 1%.

These are among the key find­ings of a 207-page mar­ket report released today by Sharp­Brains and pre­pared in col­lab­o­ra­tion with 24 lead­ing sci­en­tists and 10 inno­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions — the most com­pre­hen­sive such research study done to ana­lyze emerg­ing research, tech­nolo­gies and marketplace.

“We must do for brain health in the 21st cen­tu­ry what we large­ly accom­plished in car­dio­vas­cu­lar health in the past cen­tu­ry. It’s time to take sci­en­tif­ic insights out of the lab and to iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions, mak­ing the main­te­nance of good brain fit­ness a pub­lic health pri­or­i­ty,” indi­cates William Reich­man, MD, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Baycrest.

Oth­er Report High­lights are: [Read more…] about New Report Finds A Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion in the Mak­ing, Dri­ven by Dig­i­tal Tech­nol­o­gy and Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty Research

AAA to deploy Brain Fitness Software DriveSharp to Assess and Train Older Driver’s Brains

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The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty just start­ed to rec­om­mend a new dri­ver safe­ty pro­gram called Dri­ve­Sharp (see AAA and Posit Release Pro­gram to Improve Dri­vers’ Minds), devel­oped by Posit Sci­ence. Dri­ve­Sharp is a com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ment and train­ing tool based on Kar­lene Bal­l’s research on old­er adults’ cog­ni­tive fit­ness and driving.

In the press release for the agree­ment, Peter Kissinger, dri­ver safe­ty research and pol­i­cy vet­er­an and CEO of the AAA Foun­da­tion, says thatPeter Kissinger AAA Foundation “Part of mak­ing our nation’s roads safer is help­ing mature dri­vers who wish to stay active — a quick­ly grow­ing pop­u­la­tion — main­tain or improve their dri­ving safety.”

We have Peter Kissinger with us to dis­cuss the con­text for this inno­v­a­tive initiative.

Peter, I appre­ci­ate your time. In order to set the con­text, would you intro­duce the role and pri­or­i­ties of the AAA Foundation?

Sure. All your read­ers will know that AAA is the main dri­ver asso­ci­a­tion in North Amer­i­ca, with over 50 mil­lion mem­bers. The AAA Foun­da­tion is focused on the research and pol­i­cy required to improve dri­ver safe­ty and has 4 strate­gic priorities:
— Intro­duce a cul­ture of traf­fic safe­ty. It is an out­rage that there is a dri­ving-relat­ed death every 13 min­utes in the US, and yet, we seem to accept this as sta­tus quo
— Improve road safe­ty, espe­cial­ly on rur­al roads, where almost 60% of the deaths occur,
— Improve safe­ty among teens, one of the high­est risk groups
— Improve safe­ty among seniors, anoth­er high-risk group.

In terms of dri­ver-cen­tered inter­ven­tions, are your pri­or­i­ties are teenage and old­er drivers?

driver fatality rateYes. You have prob­a­bly seen the U‑shaped risk curve (Edi­tor note: see fig­ure at left) that shows how acci­dent risks are very high among teenagers, then decrease and remain sta­ble until our 60s, and then increase again.

We have pro­mot­ed ini­tia­tives such as Dri­verZED (see www.driverzed.org) to help teenagers bet­ter iden­ti­fy and man­age the typ­i­cal sources of risk, so they advance faster through the learn­ing curve. For old­er dri­vers we focus on how to bal­ance the priv­i­lege of dri­ving with the right of mobil­i­ty — we know that los­ing dri­ving inde­pen­dence can bring a vari­ety of neg­a­tive con­se­quences for the individual.

Giv­en aging pop­u­la­tion trends, it is clear we need to intro­duce bet­ter sys­tems to bal­ance those two goals you just out­lined ‑safe­ty and mobil­i­ty. Do you think as a soci­ety we are prepared? 

I don’t think we are, and I am pes­simistic that we will be in the short term. This is a very impor­tant prob­lem: offi­cial esti­mates say that the pro­por­tion of all dri­vers who are over 65 years of age will grow from 15% today to 25% in 2025.

Let me give you some back­ground: two years ago we put togeth­er a work­shop to iden­ti­fy the state of the research and the state of the prac­tice of dri­ver safe­ty among [Read more…] about AAA to deploy Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Dri­ve­Sharp to Assess and Train Old­er Driver’s Brains