health-system

Technology Innovation to Enhance Wellbeing: New Model eHealth Community

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Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing Receives Grant for the Mod­el eHealth Com­mu­ni­ty for Aging (press release):

- ” The Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing (Front Porch Cen­ter), a 501©(3) found­ed on the belief that tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion plays a vital role in enhanc­ing well­be­ing, was award­ed eHealth equip­ment val­ued at approx­i­mate­ly $207,000 through the Mod­el eHealth Com­mu­ni­ties ini­tia­tive at UC Davis Health Sys­tem and the [Read more…] about Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion to Enhance Well­be­ing: New Mod­el eHealth Community

Wellness Coaching for Brain Health and Fitness

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We just received this quote of how a major health sys­tem is using our Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket Report:

“At Sut­ter Health Part­ners we rec­og­nize the impor­tance of brain health and how much the health of the brain and the body are inter­de­pen­dent.  The mar­ket report helped us fur­ther tar­get our coach­ing efforts to inte­grate brain fit­ness and upgrade our entire coach­ing plat­form.  It is easy to read and gives you the indus­try per­spec­tive in a thor­ough yet con­cise man­ner.  I high­ly rec­om­mend it!”

– Mar­garet Sabin, CEO of Sut­ter Health Part­ners and VP, New Prod­uct Devel­op­ment, at Sut­ter Health.

You may won­der, “what is the link between  well­ness coach­ing and brain fitness”?

In prac­tice, good health and well­ness coach­es pro­vide excel­lent brain health advice, giv­en that the areas they focus on (nutri­tion, phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment) do play an impor­tant role in main­tain­ing our brains in top shape.

Addi­tion­al­ly, pio­neers  such as Sut­ter Health Part­ners are adding a Brain “lens” to their work. How?

First, by bet­ter under­stand­ing and explain­ing the brain ben­e­fits of what they already do, in order to pro­vide addi­tion­al moti­va­tion to stick with healthy behav­iors. For exam­ple, most peo­ple will be able to recite mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits of mod­er­ate car­dio­vas­cu­lar exer­cise. But how many know  that it can also con­tribute to neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis ‑the cre­ation of new neu­rons — in adult brains?

Sec­ond, by start­ing to offer brain fit­ness guide­lines to clients who want too go beyond cross­word puz­zles and sudoku.

I had a great train­ing ses­sion with a num­ber of Sut­ter Health coach­es last week — let me sum­ma­rize some of the main points we cov­ered. [Read more…] about Well­ness Coach­ing for Brain Health and Fitness

Brain Fitness Software Report: Reviews

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A few recent acco­lades for our just released Mar­ket Report:

“An in-depth and cred­i­ble mar­ket research report that pro­vides an objec­tive view for investors and exec­u­tives look­ing for gam­ing and health oppor­tu­ni­ties in the grow­ing “brain train­ing” space. This report is a must-read to under­stand the state of the mar­ket, the play­ers, and key trends.”
— Daniel Gold­man, founder of Total Enter­tain­ment Net­work and for­mer exec­u­tive at Posit Sci­ence Corporation.

“This report is a must have for those in the brain health indus­try. Final­ly, an easy to use objec­tive resource orga­niz­ing the flur­ry of glob­al brain health activ­i­ties. The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket report not only tells the sto­ry of cog­ni­tive train­ing and brain fit­ness, but pro­vides a broad range of data allow­ing one to more swift­ly nav­i­gate the cur­rent ter­rain and future landscape.”
— Debra Ray­bold, Direc­tor, Brain Health Cen­ter, Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal Health Sys­tem, South Bend, Indiana.

“This report is com­pre­hen­sive to say the least. It pro­vides an essen­tial ser­vice for long term care orga­ni­za­tions who want to pro­vide mind-enhanc­ing pro­grams and ser­vices. There is a [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Report: Reviews

Alzheimer’s Disease: too serious to play with headlines

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Featured Website, Scientific American Mind, June/July 2007

We just came across an arti­cle titled Best Com­put­er Brain Games for Senior Cit­i­zens to Delay Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. The head­line makes lit­tle sci­en­tif­ic sense-and we observe this con­fu­sion often. The arti­cle men­tions a few pro­grams we have dis­cussed often in this blog, such as Posit Sci­ence and Mind­Fit, and oth­ers we haven’t because we haven’t found any pub­lished sci­ence behind, such as Dakim and MyBrain­Train­er. And there are more pro­grams: what about Hap­py Neu­ron, Lumos­i­ty, Spry Learn­ing and Cap­tain’s Log. Not to talk about Nin­ten­do Brain Age, of course.

Some of those pro­grams have real sci­ence that, at best, shows how some spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive skills (like mem­o­ry, or atten­tion, or pro­cess­ing) can be trained and improved-no mat­ter the age. This is a very impor­tant mes­sage that has­n’t yet per­co­lat­ed through many brains out there: we know today that com­put­er-based soft­ware pro­grams can be very use­ful to train some cog­ni­tive skills, bet­ter than alter­na­tive meth­ods (paper and pen­cil, class­room-based, just “dai­ly living”).

Now, no sin­gle pro­gram can make ANY claim that it specif­i­cal­ly delays/ pre­vents Alzheimer’s Dis­ease beyond gen­er­al state­ments such as that Learn­ing Slows Phys­i­cal Pro­gres­sion of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (hence the imper­a­tive for life­long learn­ing) and that men­tal stim­u­la­tion-togeth­er with oth­er lifestyle fac­tors such as nutri­tion, phys­i­cal exer­cise and stress man­age­ment, as out­lined in these Steps to Improve Your Brain Health- may con­tribute to build a Cog­ni­tive Reserve that may reduce the prob­a­bil­i­ty of prob­lems. Pro­grams may be able to [Read more…] about Alzheimer’s Dis­ease: too seri­ous to play with headlines