• 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

American-Society-on-Aging

Reminder: ASA Brain Health Day in Oakland, CA

August 26, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

We have two excel­lent new speak­ers, Anne Hin­ton and Steve DeMel­lo, to add to the excel­lent ros­ter dur­ing the ASA Brain Health Day to take place on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, at the Oak­land Mar­riott City Center.

Anne Hinton San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult ServicesAnne Hin­ton is Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Depart­ment of Aging and Adult Ser­vices. In this capac­i­ty she has respon­si­bil­i­ty for In-Home Sup­port­ive Ser­vices, Adult Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, Pub­lic Guardian, Pub­lic Con­ser­va­tor, Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tor, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pay­ee, Vet­er­ans Ser­vices, Infor­ma­tion and Refer­ral, and the Part­ner­ship for Com­mu­ni­ty Based Care and Sup­port. In addi­tion the Depart­ment funds 45 com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice providers for pro­grams such as con­gre­gate meals, senior cen­ters, home deliv­ered meals, case man­age­ment, fam­i­ly care­giv­ing, etc.

Her career spans more than 25 years includ­ing posi­tions as the Direc­tor of Home Care, Care Man­age­ment and Fidu­cia­ry Ser­vices Depart­ment for the Insti­tute on Aging, the Direc­tor of Aging Ser­vices for San Fran­cis­co Catholic Char­i­ties and Direc­tor of the South San Fran­cis­co Senior Ser­vices. Ms. Hin­ton has expe­ri­ence as a lecturer/teacher in the field of Gerontology.

Steven DeMello Public Health InstituteSteven DeMel­lo has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in research, hos­pi­tal oper­a­tions, strate­gic plan­ning, sys­tems man­age­ment and con­sult­ing. He is cur­rent­ly a Research Pro­gram Direc­tor at the Pub­lic Health Insti­tute. His most recent posi­tion wass as Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Senior Advi­sor of the Health Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter (HealthTech), a non-prof­it research group and expert net­work based in San Fran­cis­co. Pri­or to HealthTech he served as chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of ezboard, Inc. a large first-gen­er­a­tion con­sumer social net­work­ing com­pa­ny. His pre­vi­ous posi­tions include serv­ing as Senior Vice Pres­i­dent Cal­i­for­nia Health­care Sys­tem, Pres­i­dent and COO of Alliance Home Care Man­age­ment, Inc., and Prin­ci­pal at the glob­al man­age­ment con­sult­ing firm A.T. Kear­ney. He received a BA in Eco­nom­ics from Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege, and an MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chicago.

Reg­is­tra­tion fees are still $150, but will increase to $190 by August 29th. More infor­ma­tion at ASA Brain Health Day. If you are plan­ning to attend…hurry!

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, American-Society-on-Aging, Anne-Hinton, ASA, DAAS, Department-of-Aging-and-Adult-Services, gerontology, Healthcare-System, HealthTech, Oakland, Public-Health-Institute, san-francisco, San-Francisco-Department-of-Aging-and-Adult-Services, senior-centers, Steven-DeMello

Agenda: ASA Brain Health Day, Powered by SharpBrains

July 30, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to co-pro­duce a American Society on Agingpro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment day for pro­fes­sion­als in the field of aging. The day is themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, and will take place on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, dur­ing ASA’s West Coast Con­fer­ence on Aging, in the Oak­land Mar­riot City Cen­ter, Oak­land, CA.

“Giv­en aging pop­u­la­tion trends, it is clear that we need more and bet­ter trained aging pro­fes­sion­als, and that brain health needs to be a major com­po­nent in that train­ing. We are pleased to part­ner with Sharp­Brains to offer the lat­est think­ing, best prac­tices, and resources, to our mem­bers,” said Car­ole Ander­son, Vice Pres­i­dent of Education.

“The grow­ing inter­est in brain health and fit­ness among con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als alike needs to be accom­pa­nied by high-qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives to help sep­a­rate real­i­ty from hope from hype. We are hon­ored to part­ner with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging in this impor­tant endeav­or,” said Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & co-founder of Sharp­Brains and co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Descrip­tion and How to Register
Since 2006, healthy aging pio­neers have been active­ly eval­u­at­ing and imple­ment­ing an expand­ing menu of stim­u­lat­ing brain health pro­grams. The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to intro­duce aging pro­fes­sion­als to the best prac­tices in a vari­ety of com­mu­ni­ty-based and res­i­den­tial set­tings, dis­cuss emerg­ing trends that will affect your work in years to come, and offer you resources to under­stand and nav­i­gate through the grow­ing array of options.

Par­tic­i­pants will receive a com­pli­men­ta­ry and signed copy of the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $24.95).

Learn­ing objec­tives are:

- Under­stand the com­ple­men­tary val­ue the four main lifestyle pil­lars for life­long brain health and why “men­tal exer­cise”, beyond sim­ple “men­tal activ­i­ty”, is one of them.
— Iden­ti­fy the best mix of brain health prac­tices and tech­nolo­gies by dis­cussing real world case stud­ies in a vari­ety of set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, assist­ed living.
— Dis­cuss the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of build­ing inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships between a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and a for-prof­it companies.
— Explore emerg­ing trends in research, pub­lic health, life­long learn­ing, and tech­nol­o­gy, to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

When and where: Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, at the Oak­land Mar­riott City Center.

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB.

The Pro­gram
9:00 — 10:30 am Keynote- The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

This ses­sion will pro­vide an overview of the most recent research, guide­lines and resources to “Use It and Improve It”, sum­ma­riz­ing the main find­ings and top­ics from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. It will debunk 10 brain fit­ness myths; dis­cuss how the brain works and the 4 pil­lars of brain main­te­nance; explain the dif­fer­ence between men­tal exer­cise and men­tal activ­i­ty and iden­ti­fy research-based ways to exer­cise our brains; and review what 21 brain fit­ness soft­ware pack­ages do and what they don’t do. Final­ly, the ses­sion will dis­cuss emerg­ing trends to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

- Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

11:00 to 12:00 noon Bring­ing Brain Fit­ness to the Com­mu­ni­ty Center

Sci­ence con­tin­ues to high­light the impor­tance of stay­ing active men­tal­ly as well as phys­i­cal­ly; peo­ple of all ages and sit­u­a­tions face the chal­lenge of learn­ing what brain exer­cise is, how it can help them, and how to incor­po­rate it into their busy lives. The Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter (PJCC) has formed a unique part­ner­ship with vibrant­Brains, a pio­neer­ing gym for brain exer­cise, to explore new ways to bring brain fit­ness into the com­mu­ni­ty on top of its exist­ing fit­ness and edu­ca­tion­al activities.

- Jane Post, Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter; Lisa Schooner­man, vibrantBrains

1:30 to 2:30 pm Lat­est Tech­nolo­gies and Brain Health: Val­ue and Limitations

Four inno­v­a­tive prac­ti­tion­ers will share their first-hand expe­ri­ence imple­ment­ing com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams in dif­fer­ent set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion class­es, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, and assist­ed liv­ing. They will dis­cuss the Pros and Cons of tech­nol­o­gy pro­grams pro­vid­ed by Dakim, Posit Sci­ence and Cog­niFit, help­ing the audi­ence explore how tech­nol­o­gy can enhance exist­ing brain health and well­ness pro­grams and how this trend will affect their work in the future.

- James Arp, Bel­mont Vil­lage; Kari Olsen, Front Porch; Shel­lie Sul­li­van, Lake­view Vil­lage; Teri Barr, Oak­land Uni­fied School District

2:30 to 3:15 pm Engag­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty to Inte­grate Brain Health Research into Life­long Learning

OLLI @Berkeley has devel­oped a mem­ber­ship team to inves­ti­gate how to inte­grate neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies into their life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum and ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties. If old­er adults are told that, in addi­tion to exer­cise, nutri­tion, among oth­er things, men­tal stim­u­la­tion is required that is nov­el, chal­leng­ing and varied—how can life­long learn­ing cen­ters and adults them­selves judge what that is and how to inte­grate those under­stand­ings our activ­i­ties and lives?. Susan Hoff­man will share the method­ol­o­gy and insights of work­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty as well as with a wide range of experts and sci­en­tists, and dis­cuss what might be pos­si­ble in a vari­ety of insti­tu­tion­al set­tings such as yours.

- Susah Hoff­man, OLLI@Berkeley

3:30 to 4.30 pm San Fran­cis­co Alzheimer’s Edu­ca­tion & Pre­ven­tion Task­force: Get­ting Ready for the Future

The San Fran­cis­co May­or’s office, in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Ser­vices recent­ly con­vened an expert pan­el and com­mit­tees to cre­ate a strate­gic plan for address­ing the needs of San Fran­cis­cans with mem­o­ry loss and demen­tia through the year 2020. Learn about the process, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions on how the city of San Fran­cis­co plans to address edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion of demen­tia now and in the future.

- Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion; Bill Haskells, Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Services

4:30 pm What We Have Learned, What is Next

What are some of the pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges for the next 12 months for the field at large, and for every­one involved? This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will help us sum­ma­rize the key high­lights from the whole day, iden­ti­fy emerg­ing assump­tions, themes, and pri­or­i­ties, and dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive next steps.

- Car­ole Ander­son, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging; Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

Speak­er Bios
Alvaro Fernandez SharpBrainsAlvaro Fer­nan­dez is co-founder and CEO of Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research firm that tracks the mar­ket and research for cog­ni­tive assess­ments, train­ing, and games. A mem­ber of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils, he has been quot­ed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, USA Today, and more, and recent­ly co-authored the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp. Alvaro received mas­ters’ degrees in edu­ca­tion and busi­ness from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, and teach­es at UC-Berke­ley Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute.Jane Post PJCCJane Post is the Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at the Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter. With a back­ground that start­ed in sum­mer youth camp­ing and tran­si­tioned into Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter group work, the Illi­nois native moved to the Bay Area in 1979 to begin her thriv­ing career with the Penin­su­la Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter (PJCC) in Fos­ter City. Serv­ing in posi­tions rang­ing from Youth Direc­tor to Senior Adult Direc­tor, Ms. Post has enjoyed over 30 suc­cess­ful years with the PJCC and today is the Cen­ter’s Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. She holds a Mas­ter’s degree in Social Work from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern California.

Lisa Schoonerman vibrantBrainsLisa Schooner­man is a co-founder at vibrant­Brains. Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­i­al posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cis­co to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son includ­ed a 3‑year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

James Arp Belmont VillageJames Arp works as the West Region­al Direc­tor for Activ­i­ty and Mem­o­ry Pro­grams for Bel­mont Vil­lage, where he was involved in a pilot pro­gram using com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing. James has also worked as an Admin­is­tra­tor for sev­er­al Inter­me­di­ate Care Facil­i­ties for the Devel­op­men­tal­ly Dis­abled and in Guardian­ship, and has a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence Degree in Psy­chol­o­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Disorders.

Kari Olson Front PorchKari Olson, Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer of Front Porch, leads all tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives for Front Porch and its part­ners. Kari is also the Pres­i­dent of the Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing whose mis­sion is to explore inno­v­a­tive uses of tech­nol­o­gy to empow­er indi­vid­u­als to live well, espe­cial­ly in their lat­er years. Kari is active­ly involved in the Cen­ter for Aging Ser­vices Tech­nolo­gies where she serves as a com­mis­sion­er, steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber and task group chair for Boomer Tech­nol­o­gy Needs Research and co-chair of the Provider Needs Research Work­group. Kari speaks reg­u­lar­ly around the coun­try on tech­nol­o­gy for aging ser­vices. Kari holds a BA in eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les and has com­plet­ed grad­u­ate course work in edu­ca­tion at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Los Angeles.

Teri Barr Oakland UnifiedTeri Barr admin­is­ters the brain fit­ness class­es for old­er adults at Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict. She has a BFA from the Art Insti­tute of Chica­go and a MSPE from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. In Illi­nois, she designed and imple­ment­ed well­ness class­es in Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty and Hos­pi­tal set­tings. Since mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, she has worked for OACE (Oak­land Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion) in the Old­er Adult Pro­gram. She start­ed research for brain health class­es in 2006 and began the pro­gram at OACE in 2007.

Shellie Sullivan Lakeview VillageShel­lie Sul­li­van is the Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor at Lake­view Vil­lage, a faith-based, non­prof­it retire­ment com­mu­ni­ty in Lenexa for 800 seniors offer­ing active liv­ing and sup­port­ed options. Ms. Sul­li­van coor­di­nat­ed and sup­port­ed the cog­ni­tive train­ing por­tion of the Phys­i­cal & Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Study in which Lake­view par­tic­i­pat­ed under the super­vi­sion of Dr. Art Kramer, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. She admin­is­tered all of the cog­ni­tive pre- and post-assess­ments to Lake­view Vil­lage res­i­dents and com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teers and guid­ed par­tic­i­pants using cog­ni­tive train­ing soft­ware through­out the entire study. Ms. Sul­li­van is a grad­u­ate from The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty with a degree in Communications.

Susan Hoffman OLLI@BerkeleySusan E. Hoff­man is the direc­tor of the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute with­in the Vice Provost’s Office for Teach­ing and Learn­ing at UC Berke­ley. For the past fif­teen years she has worked at UC and CSU cam­pus­es launch­ing new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tion­al pro­grams. Before then, she served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Con­fed­er­a­tion of the Arts, rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, art edu­ca­tors and arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­men­to and Wash­ing­ton for a decade. Her cre­ative work includes being a writer and film­mak­er. Her fac­ul­ty appoint­ments have been in cre­ative writ­ing, the­atre and polit­i­cal philosophy.

Elizabeth Edgerly Alzheimer's AssociationEliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Ph.D., is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and nation­al spokesper­son for the Asso­ci­a­tion’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion — North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. Dr. Edger­ly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­o­gy at the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

How to Register 

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB. 

About the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging 

Found­ed in 1954, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging is an asso­ci­a­tion of diverse indi­vid­u­als bound by a com­mon goal: to sup­port the com­mit­ment and enhance the knowl­edge and skills of those who seek to improve the qual­i­ty of life of old­er adults and their fam­i­lies. The mem­ber­ship of ASA is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary array of pro­fes­sion­als who are con­cerned with the phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, social, eco­nom­ic and spir­i­tu­al aspects of aging. They range from prac­ti­tion­ers, edu­ca­tors, admin­is­tra­tors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, busi­ness peo­ple, researchers, stu­dents, and more. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it http://www.asaging.org/

About Sharp­Brains

Sharp­Brains is a mar­ket research & pub­lish­ing firm devot­ed to help­ing orga­ni­za­tions, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers nav­i­gate the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health field. The com­pa­ny was co-found­ed by exec­u­tive Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, mem­ber of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, and neu­ro­sci­en­tist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, and writ­ing. Sharp­Brains recent­ly released the The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp (May 2009; $24.95). For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.sharpbrains.com/

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Alzheimers, Alzheimers-Association, Alzheimers-Taskforce, American-Society-on-Aging, Belmont-Village, book, Brain-health, brain-health-programs, cognifit, cognitive-health, conference, Dakim, Department-of-Aging-&-Adult-Services, event, Front-Porch, healthy-aging, Lakeview-Village, Lifelong-learning, mental-exercise, Oakland-Unified-School-District, OLLI-@Berkeley, Peninsula-Jewish-Community-Center, Posit-Science, san-francisco, vibrantbrains

News: ASA Brain Health Day, powered by SharpBrains

July 22, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

I  am very excit­ed to pre-announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) to co-pro­duce a Brain Health event, themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, to take place in Oak­land, CA, on Sep­tem­ber 11th. [Read more…] about News: ASA Brain Health Day, pow­ered by SharpBrains

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Alzheimers, Alzheimers-Association, Alzheimers-Taskforce, American-Society-on-Aging, Belmont-Village, book, Brain-health, brain-health-programs, cognifit, cognitive-health, conference, Dakim, Department-of-Aging-&-Adult-Services, event, Front-Porch, healthy-aging, Lakeview-Village, Lifelong-learning, mental-exercise, Oakland-Unified-School-District, OLLI-@Berkeley, Peninsula-Jewish-Community-Center, Posit-Science, san-francisco, vibrantbrains

Update: Public Libraries as Health Clubs for the Brain

July 7, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have the July edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and Brain Fitnessbrain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Pub­lic libraries have long offered the pub­lic more than books. And now, recent demo­graph­ic and sci­en­tif­ic trends are con­verg­ing to fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­form the role of libraries in our cul­ture. You may enjoy read­ing this recent arti­cle I wrote for the May-June 2009 Issue of Aging Today, the bimonth­ly pub­li­ca­tion of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging: Pub­lic Libraries: Com­mu­ni­ty-Based Health Clubs for the Brain.

The Big Picture

Can You Out­smart Your Genes? An Inter­view with Author Richard Nis­bett: David DiS­al­vo inter­views Richard Nis­bett, the author of Intel­li­gence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cul­tures Count, who has emerged as a per­sua­sive voice mar­shalling evi­dence to dis­prove the hered­i­ty-is-des­tiny argument.

Yes, You Can Build Willpow­er: Daniel Gole­man dis­cuss­es how the brain makes about 10,000 new cells every day, how they migrate to where they are need­ed, and how each cell can make around 10,000 con­nec­tions to oth­er brain cells. Impli­ca­tion? Med­i­tate, mind­ful­ly, and build pos­i­tive habits.

Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Inno­va­tion: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez opened the Cog­ni­tive Health Track dur­ing the Games for Health Con­fer­ence (June 11–12th, Boston) with an overview of the seri­ous games, soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions that can help assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The pre­sen­ta­tion is avail­able Here.

Brain Tests and Myths

The Best Mem­o­ry Tests, from the Alzheimer’s Action Plan: Dr. Murali Doraiswamy dis­cuss­es the Pros and Cons of the most com­mon assess­ments to iden­ti­fy cog­ni­tive prob­lems, includ­ing what the Mini-Men­tal State Exam (MMSE) does and doesn´t, and inno­v­a­tive com­put­er­ized neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests.

Debunk­ing 10 Brain Health Myths: Does your brain have a “Brain Age”? Is a Mag­ic Pill to “pre­vent mem­o­ry prob­lems” right around the cor­ner? Does “aging” equal “decline”? Check out the facts to debunk 10 com­mon myths on brain health.

Resources

Free Webi­nar: On July 21st, 10am Pacif­ic Time/ 1pm East­ern Time, Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-authors of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, will cov­er the main high­lights from this new book and address the ques­tions sub­mit­ted by read­ers. You can learn more and reg­is­ter HERE.

Research Ref­er­ences:  This is a par­tial list of the sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies reviewed dur­ing the research phase of Sharp­Brain­s’s new book, orga­nized by rel­e­vant chap­ter, for those of you who like to explore top­ics in depth by read­ing orig­i­nal research (per­haps PubMed should pro­mote itself as a nev­er end­ing source of men­tal stimulation?).

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers on Brain Fit­ness: Are you ready to test your knowl­edge of sev­er­al key brain fit­ness met­rics? For exam­ple: How many sol­diers in the US Army have gone through com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive test­ing before being deployed, and why?
Final­ly, a request: if you have already read The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, and could write a brief cus­tomer review at Amazon.com, we would sure­ly appre­ci­ate! The Amazon.com book page is Here.

Best regards, and enjoy the month

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Alzheimers, American-Society-on-Aging, Books, brain, brain-books, brain-teaser, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-health, Daniel-Goleman, David-DiSalvo, Games-for-Health, genes, health-clubs, intelligence, libraries, memory-tests, Mind-Games, Mini-Mental-State-Exam, MMSE, Murali-Doraiswamy, neuropsychological, public-libraries, Richard-Nisbett, Serious-Games, Willpower

Gerontology and the Brain

September 7, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Last Fri­day, dur­ing the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging’s Brain Health day, a par­tic­i­pant made a com­ment along the lines, “I just com­plet­ed my Mas­ters in Geron­tol­ogy at Uni­ver­si­ty XYZ. Despite my best efforts, I could not find a sin­gle brain-relat­ed class to attend as part of my stud­ies. Which is why I decid­ed to come to a con­fer­ence like this”.

Incred­i­ble that this hap­pens in 2008, a decade after the “Decade of the Brain”.

Health­care and cog­ni­tive sci­ence seem to have inhab­it­ed dif­fer­ent uni­vers­es for too long. I hope we start to see more active cross-pol­li­na­tion between both fields. Geron­tol­ogy would be a great place to start, giv­en the grow­ing demand for pre­ven­tive pro­grams to con­tribute to the cog­ni­tive health of an aging population.

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: aging, aging-population, American-Society-on-Aging, brain, Brain-health, cognitive-health, gerontology, healthcare

Update: Brain Health Promotion Event and Predictions

July 31, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brainremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

News and Events

Brain Health Pro­mo­tion by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging: You may be inter­est­ed in the excel­lent agen­da the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging has put togeth­er for health pro­fes­sion­als, from Sep­tem­ber 2–5th in San Fran­cis­co, devot­ing a full day to Brain Health. Alvaro will par­tic­i­pate in 3 of the ses­sions, includ­ing giv­ing a keynote on the Future of Brain Health.

Can Google Kill Neu­rons and Rewire Your Whole Brain?: The Atlantic Month­ly pub­lished an arti­cle titled Is Google Mak­ing Us Stu­pid, which basi­cal­ly blamed Google for lit­er­al­ly rewiring our brains into more stu­pid brains (not being able to pay atten­tion, read deep books…). We are not very impressed by the super­fi­cial treat­ment giv­en to this very impor­tant topic.

Mobile Brain Train­ing, Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing, and More News: Overview of cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness news, includ­ing recent research on how phys­i­cal exer­cise can help diag­nosed Alzheimer’s patients, the new Mac ver­sion of Posit Sci­ence’s audi­to­ry pro­cess­ing train­ing pro­gram, and more.

Mar­ket Analysis

Top 10 Brain Health Pre­dic­tions: In an emerg­ing mar­ket, like brain health and train­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to make pre­cise pro­jec­tions. Here we point out a num­ber of trends that exec­u­tives, con­sumers, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, and the media should watch close­ly in the com­ing years. Your feed­back is very wel­come…we will give a com­pli­men­ta­ry copy of our mar­ket report to the per­son who pro­vides the most insight­ful addi­tion­al pre­dic­tion by August 10th.

Cog­ni­tive Health Pio­neers: Thank You! The qual­i­ty and vari­ety of our client list brings up the cross-sec­tor demand for qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion in the emerg­ing brain fitness/ cog­ni­tive health cat­e­go­ry. And it helps us pri­or­i­tize efforts and cov­er­age of mar­ket and research news and trends.

Research Analy­sis

Encephalon blog car­ni­val: Brain & Mind Research: We host­ed Encephalon´s 50th edi­tion, where you will find a selec­tion of superb blog posts on all things Brain and Mind. Exam­ples? you may enjoy Face­book Ate My Psy­chi­a­trist or per­haps the Com­pul­sive Col­lect­ing of Toy Bul­lets and Tele­vi­sions.

Atten­tion Deficits At Work: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon pro­vides an in-depth overview of a recent study by Ron de Graaf and col­leagues, in which they found that an aver­age of 3.5% of work­ers (in ten coun­tries) meet the cri­te­ria for adult ADHD, In the US, the per­cent­age increased to 4.5%. This has clear effects on productivity.

Edu­ca­tion and Learning

Learn­ing & the Brain: Resources for Edu­ca­tors: Edu­ca­tor Lau­rie Bar­tels reviews her favorite brain resources for teach­ing and learn­ing: books, con­fer­ences, and websites.

Brain Teasers

Top 25 Brain and Mind Haikus. Yours?: Read­ers have con­tributed a good num­ber of haikus on brain-relat­ed top­ics. You can fol­low the link to check out our Favorite 7, and many oth­er fun ones…which ones do you like the most?

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: adhd, adult-AD/HD, alvaro-fernandez, Alzheimers, American-Society-on-Aging, attention-deficits, auditory-processing-training, Brain-Health-event, brain-health-predictions, Brain-Health-Promotion, brain-predictions, brain-research, cognitive-health, cognitive-health-news, encephalon, Facebook, haikus, Kill-Neurons, Learning-&-The-Brain, Mac, mind-research, mobile-brain-training, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, predictions, productivity, rewire-brain, Ron-de-Graaf, Scientific-Learning, stupid-brains

Next Page »

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 35,328 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