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Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Medical Blogging

November 15, 2011 by Alvaro Fernandez

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Grand Rounds blog car­ni­val, the week­ly edi­tion of what’s best in the health and med­ical blo­gos­phere. This week, twen­ty four blog­gers share data, insights, ques­tions, reflec­tions and more. Enjoy! [Read more…] about Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Med­ical Blogging

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Aaron-Beck, aging, aging-population, anti-vaccine, at risk, availability bias, Behavioral Health, biofeedback, blog, blog-carnival, blogs, blue circle, brain, brain chemistry, brain functionality, brain-function, cancer, cognitive-therapy, consumer, Delta Airlines, depression, diabetes, diagnostic errors, doctors, effective therapies, EHR, electronic age, Electronic Health Records, FDA, ginkgo-biloba, Grand-Rounds, health IT, Health-blogs, health-insurance, healthcare-acquired infections, healthcare-services, HIPAA, insurance, intensive care, iPad, medical-blogs, medication, medicine, memory-fitness, Mental-Health, pain, patients, poetry, primary healthcare, safe therapies, smoking, standards, therapies, Walmart

Brain fitness & training heads towards its tipping point

January 19, 2009 by Dr. Gerard Finnemore

How do you know when some­thing is fast mov­ing towards a Glad­wellian tip­ping point? When health insur­ance com­pa­nies and pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers launch sig­nif­i­cant initiatives.

For exam­ple, the gov­ern­ment of Ontario recent­ly announced a $10 mil­lion invest­ment with Bay­crest Research Cen­tre who will part­ner with MaRS Ven­ture Group to devel­op and com­mer­cialise brain fit­ness tech­nolo­gies. The invest­ment was matched by an addi­tion­al $10 mil­lion from pri­vate sources.

Anoth­er impor­tant devel­op­ment was the $18 mil­lion agree­ment between the Aus­tralian-based Brain Resource Com­pa­ny (ASX:BRC) and OptumHealth in the US. This will allow for the pro­vi­sion of web-based cog­ni­tive assess­ments as part of a clin­i­cian’s deci­sion sup­port systems.

These are some ini­tia­tives cov­ered in a webi­nar Top Ten Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 pre­sent­ed in Decem­ber for Sharp­Brains’ clients. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez described the state of play and main dri­vers behind the growth of the bur­geon­ing brain fit­ness mar­ket — which I will try and sum­ma­rize here.

The key dri­vers seem to be [Read more…] about Brain fit­ness & train­ing heads towards its tip­ping point

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: ACE, aging-society, Allstate, baby-boomer, Baycrest, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, Brain-Resource-Company, Brain-Training, cognifit, cognitive-assessments, cognitive-deficits, cognitive-enhancement, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-screenings, Dakim, FirstMark-Capital, fitbrains, Galen-Partners, ginkgo-biloba, Gladwell, health-insurance, intelligym, luminosity, lumos-labs, Lumosity, MaRS, Martin-Buschkuehl, mental-sharpness, Milk-Capital, neurobabble, neuroplasticity, Norman-Doidge, Norwest, Ontario, OptumHealth, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, public-policy, tipping-point, USA-Hockey, venture-capital, Vivity-Labs

Cognitive News November-December 2008

December 26, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have sev­er­al recent arti­cles and devel­op­ments wor­thy of attention:Brain Health News

1) Boom times for brain train­ing games (CNN)
2) Nav­i­gat­ing the brain fit­ness land­scape: do’s and don’ts (McK­night’s Long Term Care News)
3) USA Hock­ey and Intel­li­gym (press release)
4) Brain Fit­ness at New York Pub­lic Library (NYPL blog)
5) McDon­nell Foun­da­tion grant har­ness­es cog­ni­tive sci­ence to improve stu­dent learn­ing (press release)
6) Health insur­ance firms offer­ing online cog­ni­tive ther­a­py for insom­nia (Los Ange­les Times)
7) Head­Min­der Cog­ni­tive Sta­bil­i­ty Index: Com­put­er­ized Neu­rocog­ni­tive … (Press release)
8) THE AGE OF MASS INTELLIGENCE (Intel­li­gent Life)
9) Work­ing Lat­er in Life May Facil­i­tate Neur­al Health (Cere­brum)
10) The Cool Fac­tor: Nev­er Let Them See You Sweat (New York Times)

Links, select­ed quotes and com­men­tary: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive News Novem­ber-Decem­ber 2008

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Aetna, Ambien, anam, Applied-Cognitive-Engineering, biofeedback, blue-cross, brain-fitness-landscape, Brain-health, Brain-Training, brain-training-games, Cigna, cognitive-assessments, Cognitive-Engineering, cognitive-science, cognitive-therapy, Denise-Park, DoD, emotional-self-regulation, headminder, health-insurance, intelligym, Kaiser-Permanente, libraries, long-term-care, Lunesta, McDonnell-Foundation, McKnight, meditation, National-Institutes-of-Health, navigate-brain-fitness, neural-health, neuroprotective, NIH, nintendo, NYPL, Obama, public-libraries, Rozerem, self-regulation, WellPoint

Top 10 Cognitive Fitness Events of 2008 (Webinar)

December 2, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

We have just announced an upcom­ing webi­nar to pro­vide a mar­ket update:  Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 — A Mar­ket Update.

cognitive fitness When: Thurs­day Decem­ber 11th, from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Pacif­ic Time. The same webi­nar will be repeat­ed on Thurs­day Decem­ber 18th, from 9:00 to 10:00 pm Pacif­ic Time.

The Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events that will be dis­cussed include: 

1) Feb­ru­ary: Dakim secures a $10.6m invest­ment from Galen Part­ners. Jack LaLanne becomes spokesperson.
2) April: The Gov­ern­ment of Ontario, Cana­da, invests $10m in Bay­crest to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize cog­ni­tive fit­ness technologies.
3) April: Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan researchers reveal in the Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences how com­put­er­ized work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can gen­er­al­ize and improve flu­id intel­li­gence in healthy adults.
4) May: Humana unveils Games for Health ini­tia­tives, not renew­ing its agree­ment with Posit Science.
5) June: The US Army launch­es a new pol­i­cy requir­ing cog­ni­tive screen­ings of all sol­diers before deploy­ment (in order to [Read more…] about Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 (Webi­nar)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Allstate, Baycrest, brain-based-disorders, Brain-Resource, Canada, cognifit, Cognitive-functions, cognitive-screenings, cognitivee-fitness, computerized-working-memory-training, Dakim, driver-safety, FirstMark-Capital, fluid-intelligence, Games-for-Health, health-insurance, Humana, improve-intelligence, Jack-LaLanne, lumos-labs, Mental-Health, mental-health-parity, Milk-Capital, Norwest-Venture-Partners, Ontario, OptumHealth, PNAS, Posit-Science, Posit-Science-Insight, PTSD, public-policy, TBI, University-of-Michigan, US-Army, venture-capital, web-based-cognitive-assessments, working-memory-training

Online Cognitive Therapy OKed by Health Insurance

November 9, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

My apolo­gies for not writ­ing in a few days…the Glob­al Agen­da Sum­mit in Dubai has required all my atten­tion — I will sum­ma­rize the great expe­ri­ence when I land back in San Fran­cis­co tomor­row night.

The con­cepts of night and day do become chal­leng­ing when work­ing for a few days in a place with a 12-hour time dif­fer­ence with one’s home base. Sleep is indeed very impor­tant to main­tain top cog­ni­tive shape…which leads me to a fas­ci­nat­ing news announcement:

Health insur­ance firms offer­ing online cog­ni­tive ther­a­py for insom­nia (Los Ange­les Times)

- “help­ing con­sumers get a good night’s sleep has become a pri­or­i­ty for most of the top-tier U.S. health insur­ance com­pa­nies, includ­ing Well­Point, Aet­na, Cigna, Kaiser Per­ma­nente and sev­er­al Blue Cross plans. Their new pro­grams don’t involve sleep­ing pills. Instead, insur­ers are advo­cat­ing the use of cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the ther­a­py has been done large­ly through face-to-face ses­sions, but many of the pro­grams are now avail­able online.”

- “And use of sleep­ing pills has sky­rock­et­ed. A study this year [Read more…] about Online Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py OKed by Health Insurance

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Aetna, Ambien, anxiety, blue-cross, Cigna, cognitive, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, cognitive-skills, cognitive-therapy, computerized-Cognitive-Therapy, depression, Dubai, Global-Agenda-Summit, Health-Affairs, health-insurance, insomnia, Kaiser-Permanente, Lunesta, Online-Cognitive-Therapy, psychiatrist, Rozerem, sleeping-pills, social-worker, WellPoint

Brain Fitness for Baby Boomers

June 18, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

One of the best arti­cles so far on the grow­ing brain fit­ness mar­ket, by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

Click Here to check out story:

“This is not just a Nin­ten­do-fueled fad,” he says. “The brain fit­ness mar­ket passed a tip­ping point in 2007 thanks to the con­ver­gence of a very proac­tive boomer gen­er­a­tion hit­ting their 60s.”

Arti­cle: Here. High­ly recommended.

Now, as you read it, please remem­ber the theme of our most recent newslet­ter: Emerg­ing Tools, Not Mag­ic Pills.

And, for all new read­ers who are join­ing us giv­en the extra cov­er­age (CNN, CBS, CHica­go Tri­bune, dozens of oth­er papers and web­sites), let me reprint now an arti­cle I wrote here in February:

—————–

A spate of recent news cov­er­age on brain fit­ness and “brain train­ing” reflects a grow­ing inter­est in nat­ur­al, non-drug-based inter­ven­tions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This inter­est is very time­ly, giv­en the aging pop­u­la­tion, increas­ing Alzheimer’s rates, and soar­ing health care costs that place more empha­sis than ever on pre­ven­tion and chang­ing lifestyle.

[Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness for Baby Boomers

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: baby-boomers, baby-boomers-brain, brain, Brain-Training, cognitive, growing-brain-fitness-market, health-insurance, magic-pills, nintendo, Nintendo-fad, tipping-point, wellness

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