Alzheimer’s Disease and Music: A Door to Past and New Memories

Music can soothe and trig­ger mem­o­ries. It is as such that music is most often used with Alzheimer’s patients. A new study sug­gests that music may also be used as a boost­er for learn­ing new things, an abil­i­ty very impaired in those with Alzheimer’s. Indi­vid­u­als with Alzheimer’s and matched con­trols were pre­sent­ed with unfa­mil­iar songs…

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Alzheimer’s Disease: is our Healthcare System Ready?

In the midst of much health­care reform talk, not enough atten­tion seems focused on ensur­ing health­care sys­tems’ pre­pared­ness to deal with cog­ni­tive health issues ‑with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease as the most dra­mat­ic exam­­­ple- which are pre­dict­ed to grow giv­en aging pop­u­la­tion trends. Today is World Alzheimer’s Day, and the USA Today com­ments on a new report…

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Brain Fitness Update: Best of 2008

Dear read­er and mem­ber of Sharp­Brains’ com­mu­ni­ty, We want to thank you for your atten­tion and sup­port in 2008, and wish you a Hap­py, Pros­per­ous, Healthy and Pos­i­tive 2009! Below you have the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter. Enjoy: Best of 2008  Announc­ing the Sharp­Brains Most Impor­tant Book of 2008: Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Torkel Kling­berg has writ­ten a very…

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Montessori classroom for Alzheimer’s disease patients

A beau­ti­ful ini­tia­tive, fea­tured in the New York Times today: Com­ing Full Cir­cle: — “In a typ­i­cal Montes­sori class­room, teach­ers use cat­e­­go­ry-sort­ing exer­cis­es to help young stu­dents see pat­terns and con­nec­tions. But the par­tic­i­pants in this group were most­ly in their 80s and on the oth­er side of the cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment curve. They are res­i­dents at…

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Alzheimer’s Risk and Prevention: the Cognitive Reserve

A cou­ple of recent research find­ings are mak­ing the media rounds, bring­ing much need­ed atten­tion to the high Alzheimer’s rates among Lati­nos and to pre­ven­tive approach­es based on the Cog­ni­tive Reserve — such as, what jobs we choose: More Alzheimer’s risk for His­pan­ics, stud­ies find (Inter­na­tion­al Her­ald Tri­bune): — Stud­ies sug­gest that many His­pan­ics may…

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Brain and Mind News and Articles

Here you have a col­lec­tion of recent news cov­er­age on brain heath, fit­ness and train­ing top­ics: 1- Great Mem­o­ry Spe­cial in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, includ­ing — Inter­ac­tive 3D map of the brain — Mem­o­ry Game 2- Fas­ci­nat­ing What the Bea­t­les Gave Sci­ence, by Sharon Beg­ley at Newsweek — “Even in novices, med­i­ta­tion leaves its mark. An eight-week course…

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