Study: Practice effect due to repeated testing can delay detection of cognitive impairment and dementia

___ Prac­tice Imper­fect: Repeat­ed Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Can Obscure Ear­ly Signs of Demen­tia (UC San Diego Health press release): “Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) is a pro­gres­sive, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tion that often begins with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or MCI, mak­ing ear­ly and repeat­ed assess­ments of cog­ni­tive change cru­cial to diag­no­sis and treat­ment. But in a paper pub­lished online in…

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Could technology help cure depression among older adults? (Short answer: Yes)

___ Why tech­nol­o­gy — not med­ica­tion — is the future of treat­ing old­er adults with depres­sion (McK­night’s Long-term Care News): “The go-to treat­ment for many cas­es of depres­sion is med­ica­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this treat­ment option can cause as many issues as the prob­lem it is try­ing to solve. Anti­de­pres­sants can put res­i­dents at greater risk of falls,…

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The more hours you sit per day, the smaller your medial temporal lobe (MTL) seems to become, brain scans show

Sit­ting is bad for your brain — not just your metab­o­lism or heart (UCLA release): “UCLA researchers recruit­ed 35 peo­ple ages 45 to 75 and asked about their phys­i­cal activ­i­ty lev­els and the aver­age num­ber of hours per day they spent sit­ting over the pre­vi­ous week. Each per­son had a high-res­o­lu­­tion MRI scan, which provides…

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News you can use: To improve memory, exercise brain and body at the same time

___ Time for Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter  track­ing the lat­est think­ing, research and tools for brain health. This month we fea­ture five fas­ci­nat­ing inter­views at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­science and a recent study sug­gest­ing that “Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing…

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To maximize cognitive benefits, study suggests you exercise brain and body at the same time

___ Phys­i­cal and men­tal mul­ti­task­ing may boost mem­o­ry, study sug­gests (UCLA research alert): “Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing the train­ing exer­cis­es after work­ing up a sweat, accord­ing to a 55-per­­son study led by UCLA researchers. The find­ings sug­gest that…

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