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Games-for-Health-Conference

Bird’s Eye View of Cognitive Health Innovation

July 3, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

My pre­sen­ta­tion to open our Games for Health Con­fer­ence track is now avail­able via SlideShare:

See Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Innovation

Descrip­tion: Sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic trends have con­verged to cre­ate a new $265m mar­ket in the US alone: seri­ous games, soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions that can help peo­ple of all ages assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will pro­vide a Bird’s Eye View of the sci­ence, mar­ket seg­ments and trends, com­pet­i­tive land­scape, and main chal­lenges ahead, based on The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009 report released in May, which includ­ed Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and a sur­vey of 2,000+ deci­sion-mak­ers and ear­ly adopters.

61% of respon­dents to the sur­vey Strong­ly Agreed with the state­ment “Address­ing cog­ni­tive and brain health should be a health­care pri­or­i­ty.”  But, 65% Agreed/Strongly Agreed with “I don’t real­ly know what to expect from prod­ucts mak­ing brain claims.” In this ses­sion, Alvaro will pub­licly unveil the new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp, co-authored by neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and him­self, aimed at help­ing con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als under­stand and nav­i­gate this grow­ing field.

To see slides, check out Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Innovation

Enjoy the 4th of July!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-software, cognitive, cognitive-health, demographic, g4h09, Games-for-Health, Games-for-Health-Conference, innovation, neuropsychologist, scientific, Serious-Games, slideshare, technological, trends

Debunking 10 Brain Training/ Cognitive Health Myths

June 20, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Think about this: How can any­one take care of his or her brain when every week brings a new bar­rage of arti­cles and stud­ies which seem to con­tra­dict each other?

Do sup­ple­ments improve mem­o­ry? Do you need both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise or is one of them enough? Which brain train­ing approach, if any, is worth one’s time and money?

We tried to address these ques­tions, and many oth­ers, in our recent book, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­nessSharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness. The Book (182 pages, $24.95), that we pre­sent­ed at Games for Health Con­fer­ence last week. The book is the result of over two years of exten­sive research includ­ing more than a hun­dred inter­views with sci­en­tists, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers, and a deep review of the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, led by neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Elkhonon Gold­berg and myself with the help of cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist Pas­cale Mich­e­lon. As we wrote in the Intro­duc­tion, what we want­ed to do first of all was to debunks these 10 myths on brain health and brain training:

Myth 1. Genes deter­mine the fate of our brains.
Facts: Life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty allows our lifestyles and actions to play a mean­ing­ful role in how our brains phys­i­cal­ly evolve, espe­cial­ly giv­en longer life expectancy.

Myth 2. Aging means auto­mat­ic decline.
Facts: There is noth­ing inher­ent­ly fixed in the pre­cise tra­jec­to­ry of how brain func­tions evolve as we age.

Myth 3. Med­ica­tion is the main hope for cog­ni­tive enhancement.
Facts: Non-inva­sive inter­ven­tions can have com­pa­ra­ble and more durable effects, side effect-free.

Myth 4. We will soon have a Mag­ic Pill or Gen­er­al Solu­tion to solve all our cog­ni­tive challenges.
Facts: A mul­ti-pronged approach is rec­om­mend­ed, cen­tered around nutri­tion, stress man­age­ment, and both phys­i­cal and men­tal exercise.

Myth 5. There is only one “Use It or Lose it”.
Facts: The brain is com­posed of a num­ber of spe­cial­ized units. Our life and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty depend on a vari­ety of brain func­tions, not just one.

Myth 6. All brain activ­i­ties or exer­cis­es are equal.
Facts: Var­ied and tar­get­ed exer­cis­es are the nec­es­sary ingre­di­ents in brain train­ing so that a wide range of brain func­tions can be stimulated.

Myth 7. There is only one way to train your brain.
Facts: Brain func­tions can be impact­ed in a num­ber of ways: through med­i­ta­tion, cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, cog­ni­tive training.

Myth 8. We all have some­thing called “Brain Age”.
Facts: Brain age is a fic­tion. No two indi­vid­u­als have the same brain or expres­sion of brain functions.

Myth 9. That “brain age”‚ can be reversed by 10, 20, 30 years.
Facts: Brain train­ing can improve spe­cif­ic brain func­tions, but, with research avail­able today, can­not be said to roll back one “brain age”‚ by a num­ber of years.

Myth 10. All human brains need the same brain training.
Facts: As in phys­i­cal fit­ness, users must ask them­selves: What func­tions do I need to improve on? In what time­frame? What is my budget?

Do you have oth­er myths in mind you would like  us to address?

We have start­ed to receive great feed­back from the health­care com­mu­ni­ty, such as this email from a neu­ro­sur­geon in Texas:

“I real­ly like the book, it is com­pre­hen­sive with­out being too tech­ni­cal. I have rec­om­mend­ed it to sev­er­al patients. There are some oth­er books that I expect­ed would be greet­ed with enthu­si­asm, but were too com­plex for most of my patients. I think this book is right in the sweet spot”.

A short, sweet, enter­tain­ing read of a com­plex top­ic, with time­ly (writ­ten in 1/09) reviews of 21 top tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts, as well as informed and expert pre­dic­tions of where this bur­geon­ing brain-fit­ness field is head­ed. More impor­tant­ly, after you read it, you’ll have a good, detailed sense of where you, per­son­al­ly, can act to improve your own couch-pota­to brain — and how to keep it fit and flex­i­ble your whole life. The Sharp­Brains Guide To Brain Fit­ness reminds of us all why books (and not just googling a top­ic) can be well worth your time and mon­ey. Two Stetho­scopes Up — check it out. life.”

And this great book review by an Internist Physi­cian and Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion Fel­low, titled Is Your Brain A Couch Potato?:

Doc Gur­ley, book review for SFGate.com (06/08/09)

The book:  The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (avail­able via Amazon.com Here, review copies avail­able upon request).

Descrip­tion: While most of us have heard the phrase “use it or lose it,” very few under­stand what it means, or how to prop­er­ly ‚“use it”‚¬ in order to main­tain brain func­tion and fit­ness. The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness is an invalu­able guide that helps read­ers nav­i­gate grow­ing brain research and iden­ti­fy the lifestyle fac­tors and prod­ucts that con­tribute to brain health and fit­ness. By gath­er­ing insights from eigh­teen of the world’s top sci­en­tists and offer­ing tools and detailed descrip­tions of over twen­ty prod­ucts, this book is an essen­tial guide to the field of brain fit­ness, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and cog­ni­tive health. An acces­si­ble and thought-pro­vok­ing read, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness edu­cates life­long learn­ers and pro­fes­sion­als in health­care, edu­ca­tion, busi­ness, etc., on emerg­ing trends and fore­casts of what the future will hold.

Prod­ucts Reviewed (we reviewed sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished before Jan­u­ary 2009, when the man­u­script text was closed):

- Over­all brain main­te­nance: Brain Age series (Nin­ten­do), Brain­Ware Safari (Learn­ing Enhance­ment Cor­po­ra­tion), FitBrains.com (Viv­i­ty Labs), Happy-Neuron.com (Sci­en­tif­ic Brain Train­ing), Lumosity.com (Lumos Labs), Mind­Fit (Cog­niFit), (m)Power (Dakim)

- Tar­get­ed brain work­out: Clas­sic and InSight (Posit Sci­ence), Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing JM and RM (Cogmed), Dri­ve­Fit (Cog­niFit), Earo­bics (Houghton Mif­flin), Fast For­Word (Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing), Intel­li­Gym (Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing), Vision Rest­pra­tion Ther­a­py (NovaV­i­sion)

- Emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion: emWave PC and Per­son­al Stress Reliev­er (Heart­Math), Jour­ney to the Wild Divine (Wild Divine), RES­PeR­ATE (Inter­Cure), StressEras­er (Helicor)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Applied-Cognitive-Engineering, book, brain, brain-age, brain-book, brain-functions, Brain-health, brain-supplements, Brain-Training, BrainWare-Safari, cogmed, cognifit, cognitive, cognitive-health, cognitive-therapy, Cognitive-Training, Dakim, DriveFit, Earobics, Elkhonon-Goldberg, emotional-self-regulation, emWave-PC, emWave-Personal-Stress-Reliever, Fast-ForWord, FitBrains.com, Games-for-Health, Games-for-Health-Conference, Happy-Neuron.com, heartmath, Helicor, Houghton-Mifflin, improve-memory, intelligym, InterCure, Journey-to-the-Wild-Divine, Learning-Enhancement-Corporation, lumos-labs, lumosity.com, meditation, mental-exercise, MindFit, mPower, neuroplasticity, neuropsychologist, nintendo, NovaVision, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, posit-science-classic, Posit-Science-Insight, RESPeRATE, scientific-brain-training, Scientific-Learning, StressEraser, Use-It-or-Lose-It, Vision-Restpration-Therapy, Vivity-Labs, Wild-Divine, working-memory-training

Cognitive Health Track at Games for Health Conference: Full Schedule Announced!

May 25, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Games for Health and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to bring you the first Cog­ni­tive Games for Health Conference - Cognitive Health TrackHealth Track in a Games for Health Con­fer­ence, June 11–12th in Boston. If you are inter­est­ed, in attend­ing the con­fer­ence, you can learn more and reg­is­ter Here.

To get a 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees ($379), you can use dis­count code: sharp09, when you reg­is­ter Here.

—

Cog­ni­tive Health Track, Pow­ered by SharpBrains

Thurs­day, June 11th

10.20 (50m) Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Innovation
Speaker(s): Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

Sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic trends have con­verged to cre­ate a new $265m mar­ket in the US alone: seri­ous games, soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions that can help peo­ple of all ages assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will pro­vide a Bird’s Eye View of the sci­ence, mar­ket seg­ments and trends, com­pet­i­tive land­scape, and main chal­lenges ahead, based on The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009 report released in May, which includ­ed Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and a sur­vey of 2,000+ deci­sion-mak­ers and ear­ly adopters.

61% of respon­dents to the sur­vey Strong­ly Agreed with the state­ment “Address­ing cog­ni­tive and brain health should be a health­care pri­or­i­ty.” But, 65% Agreed/Strongly Agreed with “I don’t real­ly know what to expect from prod­ucts mak­ing brain claims.” In this ses­sion, Alvaro will pub­licly unveil the new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp, co-authored by neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and him­self, aimed at help­ing con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als under­stand and nav­i­gate this grow­ing field.

11.20 (30m) The All­state-Posit Sci­ence Part­ner­ship: Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Safer Driving 
Speaker(s): Tom War­den, All­state; Hen­ry Mah­ncke, Posit Science

Evi­dence-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams have been avail­able in retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties for sev­er­al years. Now, they are reach­ing a younger pop­u­la­tion includ­ing Boomers through inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships, like insurers.

In Octo­ber 2008 auto insur­ance com­pa­ny All­state and brain fit­ness soft­ware devel­op­er Posit Sci­ence announced a research col­lab­o­ra­tion that could lead to “poten­tial­ly the next big break­through in auto­mo­bile safe­ty”. The pur­pose of this ses­sion is to review nov­el ways of get­ting the sci­ence of cog­ni­tive train­ing into the real world where it can help peo­ple. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from All­state and Posit Sci­ence will dis­cuss why these part­ner­ships work for insur­ers, devel­op­ers, and end users. They will also pro­vide a thor­ough review of the eval­u­a­tion process a major part­ner goes through when select­ing a cog­ni­tive train­ing company.

12.00 (30m) What Con­sumers Buy and Why 
Speaker(s): Lind­say Gask­ins, Mar­bles: The Brain Store

Launched in Octo­ber 2008, Mar­bles: The Brain Store is a retail store that [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Health Track at Games for Health Con­fer­ence: Full Sched­ule Announced!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Allstate, Ann-MaloneyYoung-Drivers-of-Canada, attention-deficits, Bayer, Brain-Resource, cognitive-health, cognitive-rehab, Daphne-Bavelier, depression, Energy-Inside, Evian-Gordon, Games-for-Health, Games-for-Health-Conference, Happy-Neuron, healthy-games, Henry-Mahncke, innovation, Joshua-Steinerman, Kunal-Sarkar, Laura-Fay, Lindsay-Gaskins, lumos-labs, Lumosity, Marbles:-The-Brain-Store, Michael-Scanlon, Microsoft, Mild-Cognitive-Impairment-(MCI), MIT-Media-Lab, multiple-sclerosis, Murali-Doraiswamy, neuroplasticity, Norwest-Venture-Partners, Peter-Christianson, Posit-Science, Red-Hill-Studios, Robert-Hone, schizophrenia, Serious-Games, stroke, Theresa-Cerulli, Tim-Chang, Tom-Warden, Traumatic-Brain-Injury-(TBI), videogames, Vinay-Gidwaney

Cognitive Health Track at Games for Health Conference

April 22, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Ben Sawyer and I just agreed to cre­ate a new Cog­ni­tive Health track ‑Pow­ered by Sharp­Brains- at the 5th Annu­al Games for Health Con­fer­ence. I will host the 11-ses­sion Games for Health Conference - Cognitive Health Tracktrack, cov­er­ing a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics and an overview of Sharp­Brains’ upcom­ing report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009.

When and where: June 11–12th at the Hyatt Har­bor­side Hotel in Boston, MA.

Con­text: The Games for Health Con­fer­ence is pro­duced by The Seri­ous Games Ini­tia­tive and sup­port­ed by the Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion. The con­fer­ence brings togeth­er researchers, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, deci­sion-mak­ers at health­care and insur­ance providers, inno­va­tors and game devel­op­ers. I have attend­ed a few times, and have always been impressed by the cal­iber of both speak­ers and every­one in the audi­ence. Real­ly a very good crowd.

Some options to participate?

1) Attend: The cur­rent price is $379, with a 15% dis­count if you use code “sharp09” (with­out quo­ta­tion) when you reg­is­ter Here. Spe­cial price for stu­dents is $200.

Please note that the Cog­ni­tive Health track is being sched­uled now — we will announce the detailed agen­da dur­ing the month of May.

2) Speak: We are look­ing for inno­va­tors, researchers and deci­sion-mak­ers who would like to speak about their ongo­ing projects relat­ed to the use of games and oth­er com­put­er-based tech­nolo­gies for cog­ni­tive health.

If inter­est­ed, please Con­tact Us, by May 1st, a cou­ple of para­graphs sum­ma­riz­ing a) your project, bio and orga­ni­za­tion, b) what key lessons learned and impres­sions you would share if giv­en 20 minutes.

3) Advertise/ Sponsor/ Exhib­it: To inquire about options, please con­tact Beth Bryant, one of the con­fer­ence orga­niz­ers, at bbryant at dmill.com

We are proud to col­lab­o­rate with The Games for Health Con­fer­ence and expand the Cog­ni­tive Health dialogue!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Ben-Sawyer, brain-fitness-software, Brain-games, cognitive-health, cognitive-health-track, Games-for-Health, Games-for-Health-Conference, healthcare, innovators-and-game-developers, insurance-providers, medical-professionals, researchers, Robert-Wood-Johnson-Foundation, Serious-Games

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