enhance positivity

Let me now share what the Judg­ing Pan­el and the Sharp­Brains team found most impres­sive from each Win­ner and Final­ist of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, accom­pa­nied by some addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion on each of these 10 note­wor­thy ini­tia­tives and case studies.

Grand Prize Winner

USA Hock­ey, Inc., is the Nation­al Gov­ern­ing Body of the sport of ice hock­ey in the Unit­ed States. With a mem­ber­ship of near­ly 600,000 play­ers, coach­es, offi­cials and vol­un­teers that span all 50 states, USA Hock­ey seeks to pro­mote the growth of hock­ey and pro­vide the best pos­si­ble expe­ri­ence for all par­tic­i­pants by encour­ag­ing, devel­op­ing, advanc­ing and admin­is­ter­ing the sport.

Project Scope: The Nation­al Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram (NTDP), a USA Hock­ey body, is a full-time devel­op­ment pro­gram aimed at prepar­ing under-18 stu­dent-ath­letes for par­tic­i­pa­tion on US Nation­al Teams. Its efforts focus both on high-cal­iber par­tic­i­pa­tion on the ice and indi­vid­ual skill devel­op­ment. The pro­gram is com­posed of two squads: the US Nation­al Under-18 and Under-17 Teams.

Dur­ing the past hock­ey sea­son, the NTDP imple­ment­ed a cog­ni­tive train­ing sys­tem designed to help hock­ey play­ers devel­op per­cep­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing skills called The Hock­ey Intel­li­Gym. Designed to enhance ‘Hock­ey Sense’—or the way play­ers gath­er infor­ma­tion from their sur­round­ings, make and exe­cute decisions—The Hock­ey Intel­li­Gym train­ing sys­tem uti­lizes a soft­ware-based train­ing envi­ron­ment with cus­tomized algo­rithms that adjust train­ing pro­grams to indi­vid­ual play­ers accord­ing to abil­i­ty and progress. Play­ers engaged in a twice-a-week cog­ni­tive train­ing reg­i­men that became an inte­gral part of their over­all train­ing pro­gram dur­ing which time cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists mon­i­tored play­ers’ per­for­mance and pro­vid­ed coach­ing staff with analy­ses and progress reports. Among sta­tis­ti­cal fig­ures mea­sured, the most notable was the win ratio of teams involved, as Intel­li­Gym trained team won more games.

The Intel­li­Gym pro­gram took more than two years and $2 mil­lion to put togeth­er with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE) and was enabled by a grant from the BIRD Foun­da­tion who sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly reviewed the plan and finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed it.

Project Leader: Scott Mon­aghan, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions, USA Hock­ey Nation­al Team Devel­op­ment Program

Select­ed com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Excel­lent team approach between spe­cial­ist, coach and play­er. Great con­cept and need, and insights/model could apply very broad­ly to skill devel­op­ment. The adap­ta­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing to this par­tic­u­lar sports domain is clever and can be gen­er­al­ized to a wide range of oth­er activ­i­ties. I was impressed with the USA Hock­ey Nation­al Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram and their Hock­ey Intel­li­gym. To develop/adapt such a pro­gram and clear­ly demon­strate it’s impact on real-life per­for­mance, is fan­tas­tic. There is also a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand this to even more ath­letes and sports and to every­day life.

Sil­ver Prize Winners

All­state (NYSE: ALL) is the nation’s largest pub­licly held per­son­al lines insur­er. All­state is rein­vent­ing pro­tec­tion and retire­ment to help indi­vid­u­als in approx­i­mate­ly 17 mil­lion house­holds pro­tect what they have today and bet­ter pre­pare for tomorrow.

Project Scope: All­state embarked on a jour­ney with Posit Sci­ence Cor­po­ra­tion to eval­u­ate the inter­est in and effec­tive­ness of Posit Science’s software—leveraging tech­nol­o­gy shown in Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health fund­ed stud­ies to improve visu­al pro­cess­ing skills impor­tant for safe driving—to test a soft­ware pro­gram (Insight) in Penn­syl­va­nia. Select­ed dri­vers, 50 years and old­er, were invit­ed to help val­i­date the impact cog­ni­tive train­ing has on dri­ving safety.

The project was a “proof of con­cept” for what may turn out to be a sig­nif­i­cant effort by All­state to pre­vent injuries and save lives, enable old­er peo­ple to main­tain their inde­pen­dence longer and pro­vide peace of mind to adult chil­dren faced with dif­fi­cult deci­sions as par­ents age. The most impor­tant reduc­tion was in insured loss­es and result­ing injuries, trau­ma and dis­rup­tion to the lives of those involved in auto col­li­sions. After observ­ing the acci­dent behav­ior of those who com­plet­ed the Posit pro­gram, rel­a­tive to a well select­ed con­trol group, All­state saw a mea­sur­able decline that was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly valid.

Project Leader: Tom War­den, Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent, All­state Research and Plan­ning Center

Select­ed com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: The poten­tial impact of this pro­gram is sec­ond to none. I was impressed with Allstate’s project and their results that showed that the Posit Sci­ence soft­ware pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed the acci­dent records of those com­plet­ing the pro­gram. All­state should be com­mend­ed for try­ing some­thing new and dif­fer­ent and for cre­at­ing such an ini­tia­tive. Pret­ty soon I can imag­ine brain fit­ness dis­counts along­side safe dri­ver and oth­er discounts.

Nation­wide, based in Colum­bus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diver­si­fied insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions in the U.S. and is rat­ed A+ by A.M. Best. The com­pa­ny pro­vides a full range of per­son­al­ized insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices, includ­ing includ­ing auto and life insur­ance, pen­sions, health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty ser­vices, and more.

Project Scope: Nation­wide Mutu­al Insur­ance worked with ben­e­fits provider OptumHealth and their part­ner Brain Resource to add a Web based brain train­ing tool (MyBrain­So­lu­tions) to help employ­ees enhance pos­i­tiv­i­ty, emo­tion­al resilience and deal with oth­ers more effec­tive­ly — all key ele­ments to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. More than 500 employ­ees enrolled in the company’s ‘Healthy Hol­i­day Chal­lenge’ dur­ing the first week. The results of the new resource led to more pos­i­tive behav­ior changes and greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty among the workforce.

As part of the MyBrain­So­lu­tions launch, asso­ciates were asked to reg­is­ter, take a base­line brain assess­ment, accu­mu­late a tar­get num­ber of points dur­ing a 30-day peri­od and then take a sec­ond brain assess­ment. The com­pa­ny found that aspects of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, emo­tion­al resilience and social skills improved in the short 6‑week ini­tia­tive and saw small changes in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty were notice­able as well. 87% of those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram indi­cat­ed they were plan­ning to take addi­tion­al steps to improve health after par­tic­i­pat­ing while 33.5% wouldn’t have accessed oth­er resources to address health and well­be­ing if it weren’t for the initiative.

Project Leader: Kath­leen Herath, AVP Health & Productivity

Select­ed com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Har­vard Busi­ness Review esti­mat­ed a cou­ple years ago that $150B is lost annu­al­ly as a result of lost employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Giv­en all of the life events and tran­si­tions that indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­ence each year that can dis­tract, this pro­vides a fea­si­ble and attrac­tive lever for employ­ees to take advan­tage of. Employ­ers of the future that can imple­ment inno­v­a­tive mod­els such as these to adapt to the chang­ing needs of employ­ees, enhance employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and help to rede­fine what work means by infus­ing the pro­fes­sion­al with the per­son­al will win, and have as a reward loy­al employ­ees, a hap­py cul­ture, and an over­all high­er per­form­ing work­force. The pos­i­tive self-report mea­sures were impres­sive as well as the improve­ments in such a short peri­od of time. Seems to have poten­tial for replic­a­bil­i­ty with scal­able, low-cost pro­grams. In prin­ci­ple this approach could have large soci­etal ben­e­fits. Imple­ment­ing cog­ni­tive train­ing in a work place is nov­el and taps into the desire to opti­mize pro­fes­sion­al func­tion­ing as well as stave off decline.  The emo­tion­al and self-reg­u­la­tion train­ing is extreme­ly impor­tant in the work­place setting.

Rest of Top 10 Finalists

(Note: out of the 40 orga­ni­za­tions that sub­mit­ted entries to the inau­gur­al 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, 10 became Top 10 Final­ists. Here we want to rec­og­nize the orga­ni­za­tions which, while not win­ning the over­all con­test, did impress the judg­ing pan­el with the qual­i­ty of their ongo­ing ini­tia­tives. They are ordered by the approx­i­mate age of their end user pop­u­la­tion, from younger to older:

Most Inno­v­a­tive Spe­cial Ed School

Arrow­smith School offers a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, tar­get­ing 19 areas of the brain most com­mon­ly involved in learn­ing. The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, which orig­i­nat­ed in Toron­to, is now offered in schools in Cana­da and the US.

Project Scope: Help reme­di­ate Learn­ing Dis­abil­i­ties by devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a pro­pri­etary suite of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-based exer­cis­es in 3 for­mats: com­put­er-based, audi­to­ry, pen and paper.

• Project Leader: Bar­bara Arrow­smith, Director
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el:  How easy would it be to say “they’s not smart enough” or “they’re mak­ing excus­es”, instead of “they have a cog­ni­tive short­com­ing that can be addressed.” The tar­get audi­ence of 5–10% of school chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties can now have a fight­ing chance if mod­els like these can be scaled through pol­i­cy and/or repli­ca­tion. This gets my vote as the mod­el cre­ates almost immea­sur­able life­time impact for those for­tu­nate enough to be reap all the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of the pro­gram. Arrow­smith efforts since 1979 puts them in a class of their own as pio­neers. Arrow­smith also has a process learn­ing from and refin­ing its ini­tia­tives. Pro­gram can be built fur­ther on very sol­id foundations.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Behav­ioral Health Provider

Uni­ver­si­ty Behav­ioral Health­Care (UBHC) was estab­lished in 1971 as a divi­sion of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Med­i­cine and Den­tistry of New Jer­sey (UMDNJ) and is one of the largest providers of behav­ioral health­care ser­vices in the country.

Project Scope: Reme­di­ate cog­ni­tive impair­ments asso­ci­at­ed with severe men­tal ill­ness by devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing an inno­v­a­tive cur­ricu­lum and pro­pri­etary man­u­al for cog­ni­tive rehab sup­port groups, com­bin­ing best of Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py, cog­ni­tive train­ing, and social skills training.

• Project Leader: Steven M. Sil­ver­stein, Ph.D., Direc­tor, Divi­sion of Schiz­o­phre­nia Research & Direc­tor of Research
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Note­wor­thy per­son-cen­tered approach, focused on how to impact qual­i­ty of life with self-empow­er­ment tools and social support.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Foundation

The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­tyhas a mis­sion to iden­ti­fy prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als that pro­mote good safe­ty practices.

Project Scope: Improve dri­ving safe­ty among old­er adults by  pro­mot­ing and test­ing visu­al pro­cess­ing train­ing pro­gram InSight by Posit Science.

• Project Leader: Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent and CEO
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Very high qual­i­ty pro­gram Inno­v­a­tive. Emi­nent­ly scal­able. Ben­e­fits users, AAA, and com­mu­ni­ty at large – very good synergy.This approach grounds cog­ni­tive train­ing in an activ­i­ty that for many is crit­i­cal to inde­pen­dence. The tie to insur­ance will moti­vate the train­ing which may increase road safe­ty and have broad­er ben­e­fits for cog­ni­tive health.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Hospital

Saint Luke’s Brain and Stroke Insti­tute, part of Saint Luke’s Health Sys­tem in Kansas and Mis­souri, cov­ers the entire spec­trum of care includ­ing acute inter­ven­tion, pre­ven­tion of com­pli­ca­tions, sec­ondary pre­ven­tion and neurorehabilitation.

Project Scope: Help extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing and address cog­ni­tive impair­ments by mak­ing acces­si­ble a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter that com­bines edu­ca­tion, assess­ments, lifestyle advice and tar­get­ed neu­rocog­ni­tive and mind­ful­ness-based training.

• Project Leader: John Cor­ba­ley, M.S., M.A., CCC/Sp., Direc­tor, Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Saint Luke’s Hos­pi­tal of Kansas City
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Saint Luke’s pro­gram was impres­sive in a num­ber of ways. I liked that they worked with mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines to cre­ate a holis­tic pro­gram focused on improved brain health through cog­ni­tive train­ing, nutri­tion and exer­cise as well as oth­er activ­i­ties. It is no sur­prise that they have a wait list of users eager to join their program.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Adult Education

Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict has a mis­sion to ensure that all stu­dents grad­u­ate as car­ing, com­pe­tent, and crit­i­cal thinkers, as well as ful­ly-informed, engaged, and con­tribut­ing cit­i­zens, pre­pared to suc­ceed in col­lege and career. Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion ser­vices empow­er adults through through edu­ca­tion and training.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing (for new pilot: improve aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess among at-risk stu­dents) by offer­ing a Brain Fit­ness Class that com­bines cur­ricu­lum, dis­cus­sions and com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing (by Posit Sci­ence, for old­er adults; by Lumos Labs, for new pilot with young adults).

• Project Leader: Teri Barr, Brain Health Pro­gram Coordinator
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: Strong approach to over­come some of the age bound­aries among tar­get­ed pop­u­la­tions. What I love the most about this won­der­ful suc­cess sto­ry is how this pro­gram has been able to appeal to indi­vid­u­als across socio-eco­nom­ic, demo­graph­ic, and edu­ca­tion­al back­grounds, and in the process deliv­er both real and per­ceived val­ue. One way I think it has done this is through pre­sent­ing a mul­ti-faceted val­ue propo­si­tion (i.e., build cog­ni­tive health + build com­mu­ni­ty + have fun in the process) in a sin­gle set­ting. Lessons learned were also very well artic­u­lat­ed, and the approach of com­bin­ing high-tech with high-touch I thought was inge­nious and real­is­tic giv­en the context.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Men­tal Health Association

The Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Rock­land Coun­ty, in New York State, is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion with a mis­sion to pre­vent men­tal ill­ness and fos­ter men­tal well­ness through com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, direct ser­vice and advo­ca­cy for leg­is­la­tion and programs.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing by offer­ing a cog­ni­tive health series of live events to engage the com­mu­ni­ty with a stig­ma-free, proac­tive brain fit­ness mes­sage, sup­port­ed by pro­fes­sion­al train­ing, social­iza­tion plat­forms and cog­ni­tive train­ing (by CogniFit).

• Project Leader: Karen Oates, Director
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: So great to see a Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion pro­mot­ing this impor­tant project and ally­ing with so many groups and orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Cog­niFit, in doing so. Great that they have been able to over­come the stig­ma so often asso­ci­at­ed with aging and men­tal fit­ness through the project. With the man­u­al and pam­phlet, there are excel­lent repli­ca­tion possibilities.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Health Plan

SCAN Health Plan has been focus­ing for more than 30 years on the unique needs of peo­ple with Medicare and is now the country’s fourth largest not-for-prof­it Medicare Advan­tage plan. The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly has near­ly 120,000 mem­bers in Cal­i­for­nia and Arizona.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing by devel­op­ing the con­cept of a “SCAN Van” to deliv­er health screen­ings & edu­ca­tion com­bined with phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive exer­cise (Wii gam­ing; touch screen-based cog­ni­tive train­ing by Hap­pyNeu­ron) in places where seniors gather.

• Project Leader: Lena Perel­man, Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Outreach
• Select­ed Com­ments by Judg­ing Pan­el: A clever plan for the deliv­ery of cog­ni­tive exer­cis­es. SCAN’s is inno­v­a­tive not only because its mobile but because it presents a more holis­tic approach to brain health with its “mul­ti-pronged” program.

Here you can learn more about the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.