baby-boomers

Who will be the personal brain trainers of the future?

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brainBrain-fit­ness indus­try caters to wor­ried boomers (Crain’s):

“Mr. Fernandez…compares the brain-fit­ness indus­try of today with the phys­i­cal-fit­ness indus­try of half a cen­tu­ry or more ago. Where­as once there were no health clubs or per­son­al train­ers, today they’re ubiq­ui­tous. “Who will be the per­son­al brain train­ers of the future?” he says. “Are they going to be doc­tors, life coach­es, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists? Will health clubs [Read more…] about Who will be the per­son­al brain train­ers of the future?

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

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

From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Magic Bullets” to True Brain Health

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If you fol­lowed lat­est head­lines sur­round­ing the release of the Nation­al Alzheimer’s Plan, you’d prob­a­bly con­clude that the like­ly solu­tion to main­tain life­long brain health is sim­ple: sim­ply wait until 2025 for a “mag­ic bul­let” to be dis­cov­ered, to cure (or end or pre­vent) Alzheimer’s dis­ease and aging asso­ci­at­ed cog­ni­tive decline. These kinds of beliefs, often rein­forced by doc­tors and adver­tis­ing, may explain the bil­lions spent today by phar­ma com­pa­nies on dis­cov­er­ing new com­pounds, and by con­sumers on sup­ple­ments like gink­go bilo­ba. But [Read more…] about From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Mag­ic Bul­lets” to True Brain Health

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 4: The Future

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Build­ing Blocks for a Bet­ter Future

The best alter­na­tive for tomor­row should be bet­ter than the best alter­na­tive avail­able today. How do we get there, when “cog­ni­tion” and “brain fit­ness” remain elu­sive con­cepts in pop­u­lar cul­ture? I believe that the lack of pub­lic edu­ca­tion is the major obsta­cle that lim­its the brain fit­ness field’s poten­tial to deliv­er real-world ben­e­fits, since only informed demand will ensure the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of ratio­nal, struc­tured “rules of the road.” What could be done to address this and oth­er par­tic­u­lar obsta­cles? [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 4: The Future

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 3: The Real Need

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Engag­ing peo­ple where they are in the life-course

Eighty per­cent of the 38,000 adults over age 50 who were respon­ders in the 2010 AARP Mem­ber Opin­ion Sur­vey indi­cat­ed “stay­ing men­tal­ly sharp” was their top ranked inter­est and con­cern (Dinger, 2010). What exact­ly does this phrase mean? And what role can tech­nol­o­gy play in “stay­ing men­tal­ly sharp”? Intel CEO Paul Otelli­ni has said, “You have to start by think­ing about what peo­ple want to do… and work back­ward.” [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 3: The Real Need

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics

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The ter­mi­nol­o­gy “fun­da­men­tal attri­bu­tion error” describes the ten­den­cy to over­val­ue per­son­al­i­ty-based expla­na­tions for observed human behav­iors, while under­valu­ing sit­u­a­tion­al expla­na­tions for those behav­iors.  I believe that a pri­ma­ry rea­son behind many per­ceived and real eth­i­cal chal­lenges in the brain fit­ness field is due not so much to cer­tain stake­hold­ers’ lack of per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al ethics, but derives from the flawed soci­etal con­struct that under­pins cur­rent, rel­e­vant inno­va­tions. To improve the ethics of the brain fit­ness busi­ness and its appli­ca­tion (and empow­er con­sumers’ informed deci­sion mak­ing), there must first be agree­ment about a mean­ing­ful, appro­pri­ate way to ana­lyze and guide inno­va­tion. This is the crux of the prob­lem. The cur­rent med­ical mod­el is not up to the task at hand, since it is heav­i­ly skewed toward inva­sive drugs and devices dri­ven by dis­ease-based mod­els, and fails to lever­age [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics